Bob strikes back at “Attack of the Clones” naysayers*

In Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the respected surgeon Tomas finds himself unable to find work after returning to Soviet-occupied Prague, thanks to his refusal to recant an article he’d written prior to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. The matter of his article makes for one of the most persuasive readings of Greek mythology—a political interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. According to Tomas, the Communists of his country who claimed to be unaware of the Soviet Union’s atrocities were just as guilty as Oedipus, the Theban king who brought plagues upon his kingdom by unwittingly marrying his mother. “As a result of your ‘not knowing,’ this country has lost its freedom…” writes Kundera. “And you shout that you feel no guilt? How can you stand the sight of what you’ve done? How is it you aren’t horrified? Have you no eyes to see?”

Living in France as a refugee from his native land, he understood the implications of the myth far better than commentators who tend to oversimplify the Freudian analysis of the Oedipus complex. Where others could only see the horrific tragedy of murder, incest, suicide and self-mutilation, Kundera saw a story of politically motivated guilt from the blinded eyes of a king blessed with wisdom but bankrupt in knowledge, drawing a careful line between innocence and ignorance. But others had picked up on Kundera’s feeling long before he put it into Tomas’ mouth. The Oedipal nature of guilt is something many writers, artists and particularly filmmakers have observed, however subliminally, as recently as John Frankenheimer helming the seminal thriller The Manchurian Candidate. There, Lawrence Harvey’s brainwashed soldier finds himself manipulated by domineering mother Angela Lansbury into performing assassinations for an international Communist plot. The Freudian aspect of the story is undeniable, not only in the heavy implications of consummated incest, but also in the subtler, subliminal symbolism strewn about throughout the film. As Pauline Kael famously pointed out, when Harvey murders a left-wing Senator in his kitchen, the victim winds up bleeding milk.

Is it the nocturnal emission of a hypnotically induced wet-dream, the ironic spout of a bitter blend of mother’s milk, or merely a visual pun of the “bleeding-heart liberal”? Whatever it is, it’s one of the quick cinematic details that cineastes picked up on and filmmakers would later use as reference points. There’s a hint of it in James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, where a shape-shifting assassin from the future murders Xander Berkley while posing as young John Connor’s foster mother, a liquid-metal blade slicing through a carton of milk to penetrate the human’s skull. You can see echoes of it in Steven Spielberg’s Munich as Mossad agents gun down a Palestinian agent carrying groceries, spilling blood and milk in equal amounts, a disturbing addition to a film which already carries good deal of Oedipal baggage (Golda Meir’s maternal vendetta mission and Eric Bana’s flashbacks to the hostage-crisis intercut with his making love to a pregnant wife). Spielberg had earlier delved into heavy Oedipal themes and imagery in his 2002 adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s Minority Report, where Tom Cruise chokes on spoiled milk while recovering from an eye-transplant to avoid dystopian retinal scanners—one instance of many blindness-images throughout, including a child cutting out the eyes of a paper Lincoln mask, betraying a Railsplitter obsession to rival Frankenheimer.

That same summer saw the release of Attack of the Clones, the fifth entry in George Lucas’ blockbuster Star Wars series and second episode of the contentious Prequel Trilogy, and while Lucas’ work may lack the clarity, discipline and finesse of his longtime compatriot and collaborator’s, it is no doubt the more important film. As the first major motion-picture shot on high-definition video, it stands as a highly influential piece of technical craft and watershed moment marking the transition from celluloid to digital filmmaking and its effective democratization of cinema. As the penultimate installment of a franchise that spans decades of effort and imagination, it can sit comfortably alongside its multiplex brethren as a first-rate example of family entertainment, equal parts action-packed excitement and thoughtful mythmaking. But as a piece of filmmaking, it is impossible to ignore that it suffers from any number of aesthetic and dramatic flaws, making it easily the most troubled entry of its series and a prime example for its creator’s increasing folds of vocal detractors.

However, like The Phantom Menace before it, Episode II is an underestimated movie, hiding just as many treasures waiting for serious audiences to dig up. While by no means the underrated achievement that Episode I was—a film that ten years later keeps looking better than most gave it credit for and victim to far more hype and Everest-sized expectations than anyone realizes today—the second chapter of Anakin Skywalker’s path to becoming Darth Vader remains a compelling effort, driven by the same Oedipal politics and imagery as the work of Kundera, Frankenheimer or Spielberg. But while those artists made their themes at turns apparent and implicit through an expert use of open reference and symbolism, Lucas makes things cloudy and opaque in the most obscure and intertextual entry of the Star Wars series. You don’t have to be a fan to enjoy the film—in fact, thanks to the divisive reception the Prequels received, it may help not to be one—but you do have to be a fan if you want to really understand it. For this reason alone, Attack of the Clones may very well be the weakest film of George Lucas’ career, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t pack a punch of its own.

I: You Know That Something’s Happening, But You Don’t Know What It Is

Conflict abounds, right from the opening crawl: ten years after the invasion of Naboo and the subsequent election of Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), the Republic finds itself in turmoil again as a secession movement spearheaded by Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), a former Jedi with a grudge against the corrupt Senate, threatens peace across the galaxy. When the life of former Queen, now Senator Amidala (Natalie Portman) is threatened by assassination attempts, Padawan learner Anakin Skywalker is assigned as her bodyguard, struggling as much with his feelings for her as his fears for the safety of his mother back on Tatooine (Pernilla August), both of which are forbidden by the strict Jedi code. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) chases after bounty-hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) from one planet to another, piecing together a mystery involving an army of clone-soldiers and a conspiracy by the Dark Lord of the Sith to bring down the Republic, once and for all.

To say that the story Lucas sets out to tell is ambitious is an understatement—the intended scope of political, emotional and spiritual themes throughout Attack of the Clones is as epic as the otherworldly sights with which he fills the panoramic canvas of the cinemascope screen. Collaborating on a script for the first time openly since Return of the Jedi, Lucas and screenwriter Jonathan Hales keep the pace brisk with frequent pitstops for action-beats and emotional moments, never allowing the film to slow down long enough for attention spans to waver, even through scenes of legislative referendum. Episode II may be many things—sloppy, wooden and obscure—but it is never, or at least rarely, boring. Much of the political commentary that went over the heads of audiences and critics alike in The Phantom Menace becomes much easier to digest with the simple, yet relatable plot device of the coming war, especially concerning the debate over whether to grant the Chancellor emergency-powers necessary to create a Grand Army of the Republic.

Some of this could’ve been expected—after the more remote picaresque of Episode I, Lucas settles into a more familiar story here, telling the long-fabled exploits of the Jedi Knights in the Clone Wars, an event only fleetingly mentioned in the A New Hope. Aside from satisfying a longstanding dark area in the saga which fans had been curious about for decades, telling the story of the Clone Wars also, at length, brings the franchise back to its roots with a story predicated largely on military conquest—in short, it puts the “war” back in Star Wars. Yet for the most part, all we see in Attack of the Clones is the build-up towards battle and its opening volleys, leaving us to wait until Episode III to watch the conflict in full-steam. Peppering his story with just enough action to keep filmgoers in their seats, if not exactly on the edge of them, Lucas holds back the promise of the episode’s title almost as long as There Will Be Blood, spending more time on the causes of war rather than war itself.

While often static and self-important, the film pays off far more than it fumbles, its democracy-protecting heroes and military industrial-complex villains timelier than ever thanks to shocking events of the year prior to the film’s debut. In the post 9/11 world to which it was released (but not written or filmed—a portion of a chase sequence early on, involving a flying craft crashing into a skyscraper, found itself altered in late post-production, to avoid the such associations), audiences found themselves much more familiar with both the sudden call to a far-off war for the sake of safety and security, and the conflict between whether to continue upholding traditional democracy or to consolidate leadership and power in the face of unprecedented danger. It would not be until Revenge of the Sith that audiences fully embraced the political undercurrents beneath Star Wars’ space-opera excitement, yet Attack of the Clones thrives, as much as it does, on the eerie similarities between our own War on Terror and the interstellar conflicts of a galaxy far, far away. While modeled after history long past, the film was recognized as a timely cautionary tale of the rise of militarism and dictatorship. Thanks to tragedy, Lucas found himself a man in the wrong place, and the wrong time to exercise free speech—which is to say, the right place, and the right time to be understood.

II: Star Cross’d Lovers

However, his narrative winds up hamstrung by two key decisions that remain apparent early on. First of all, there is the antique, repressed execution of the love story of Anakin and Padme, which all but torpedoed the film for many critics and fans alike. When detractors point out the faults of the relationship between the fated parents of the rebellious Skywalker twins, blame is usually labeled at Lucas’ occasionally woeful way with words, or historically problematic relationship with actors, leaving him unable to spark up the kind of chemistry necessary to sustain a plausible romance. But it’s important to point out that the performers themselves are not at fault here—Portman acquits herself admirably as the subdued, emotionally conservative Amidala, realistically restrained as a seasoned political veteran anxious to avoid scandal just as much as she wants to stop a war. Even Christensen delivers a pitch-perfect performance as an anxious Jedi apprentice well on his way to the Dark Side. That pitch may involve the occasionally cracking voice and awkward delivery of an unruly teen with a chip on his shoulder the size of a small moon, but that’s exactly what he is—the future Sith Lord by way of juvenile delinquent.

Many observed that Lucas saw in the young, mostly unknown actor a James Dean quality of angst and inner turmoil, and it’s easy to recognize at least a small part that in Anakin’s personality. It’s interesting to observe that Dean and his performance in Nicholas Ray’s seminal Rebel Without a Cause remains such a powerful draw for filmmakers seeking to invest their characters with the storied past of a troubled youth—Chris Pine recently mined the same material for his interpretation of Captain Kirk in J.J. Abram’s recent Star Trek reboot. But where Pine and Abrams only saw the cocky, self-assured confidence with which Dean graced the screen at its most thrilling moments—squaring off against impish thugs in the shadow of Griffith Observatory or revving up engines for a do-or-die “Chickie Race”—Lucas and Christensen emphasize the confusion and vulnerability of a young man torn apart by his deepest impulses and the contrasting expectations of family and peers alike. As he would later show in films like Shattered Glass, Christensen’s main talent is in playing characters with equal parts arrogance, avoidance and just enough pathos to make them seem human. You may not fully identify with his characters, but at least you can feel sorry for them—his roles are pathetic, if not always sympathetic. In that sense, he’s got as much Sal Mineo in him—the defeated posture that all but announces his doom as soon as you see him in the police station for shooting puppies—but still it’s the Dean in him that you remember, that opens his Anakin up as an object of desire and imitation. As much as any American icon, Dean remains a mirror on the wall—you see in him what you see in yourself, or at least what you want to see.

Ray’s influence by and large has been clear on Lucas’ cinema since the director’s early days—there’s a big dose of Rebel in the time-capsule American Graffiti, and each of the Star Wars films contain moments of the same bigger than life theatricality present in Ray’s best work. Even in THX 1138, Lucas showcases the same expert hand of utilizing real-world architecture in the artifice of filmmaking that Ray, a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright, made use of. Attack of the Clones, in its frustrated, repressed love story seems to reach for the same nervous anxiety that drives Mercedes McCambridge’s cowboy lynch-mobs in Johnny Guitar, but it never quite reaches those histrionic heights. Perhaps that’s because the specific model Lucas chooses for Anakin and Padme’s courtship is less the familiar archetype of stubborn, dueling mates—a convention as classic as Taming of the Shrew and as apropos as The Empire Strikes Back—than the more old-fashioned, and much more difficult, tradition of star crossed lovers. Closer to fabled lovers Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, or Lancelot and Guenivere than stubborn, sparring partners like Han and Leia, Anakin and Padme’s romance has an oddly formal, antiquated quality to it that hearkens back to long-ago days of courtly love. Even John William’s love-theme, “Across the Stars”, makes reference to the motif, both in title and with its mandolin-string plucks quaintly reminiscent of the atmosphere found in Boccaccio’s Decameron, or Passolini’s attempt to film it.

Held back not by competing personalities or conflicting priorities, but by social conventions that predate their mutual attraction, theirs is a courtship whose obstacles are external and environmental, rather than internal and character driven. Padme doesn’t refuse Anakin because she’s too proud to admit her love for him, as her daughter will later spurn advance after advance by rogue Han Solo. Rather, she’s all too aware of her feelings and the dangers they would incur. Just as the most famous star crossed pairings risk the threats of warring families, jealous spouses and the fall of Camelot, Lucas’ lovers risk a calamity of epic proportions in Anakin’s potential expulsion from the Jedi order. Like the sex-criminal renegades of THX 1138, theirs is a love that arrives with consequences, so to see them sidestep and avoid any attraction at all costs rings absolutely true, because they remain keenly aware of how high those costs are. Maybe it’s appropriate that Amidala is portrayed as an older woman (however slightly) to the constantly put-down Anakin, at once a maternal and romantic figure, raising the plague-ridden specter of Oedipus and Jocasta, perhaps the most star crossed lovers of all time.

But no matter how apt Lucas’ perception is, the romance fails to cultivate the kind of dramatic-drive it aims for in many filmgoers, perhaps due to his unwillingness (or inability) to make good on what might be the most important part of the star crossed lover’s convention—consummation. Unlike other traditional examples of doomed youths daring to breach the moral code of forbidden love, we never see Anakin and Padme exhibit passionate embraces any more intimate than a few chaste kisses. While it’s easy to forget thanks to their ubiquitous standing in antiquated storytelling, the most classic examples of star crossed lovers almost always have an erotic component of their relationship just as strong as their long held-back desires for one another. Writers like Boccaccio expertly articulated how directly proportional the fire between lovers can be to the length of time they’ve resisted such temptations. Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet made a point to show Verona’s youths naked together in bed, and while plenty scoffed at the sentimentality of James Cameron’s Titanic, it’s unlikely too many laughed at DiCapprio and Winslet as they made sketchy art and steamy love in cabins and cars on the doomed cruise. It’s therefore immensely frustrating that with Anakin and Padme we get to witness all the repression and sublimation that goes along with forbidden desires, but none of the release. Instead of Paolo and Francesca, the best we get is a somewhat less platonic version of Dante and Beatrice’s doomed, eternity-spanning love; a PG version of THX 1138.

And therein lies the problem, likely—the sparking electricity of sexual-tension is in the air, but there’s no outlet for it. As with The Phantom Menace, Lucas remains torn between the demands of the intellectually mature themes of his story and the family-friendly demands of his intended audience, only instead of merely injecting the occasional juvenile element via gesticulatory toddler stand-in Jar Jar Binks, the film finds itself drained of the very passion that could’ve given its story the drive it needed to establish itself as a classic, instead of merely a children’s classic. Yet, while Attack of the Clones marks one of the premier examples of lost opportunities on Lucas’ part, it’s important to acknowledge just how successful it was in striking a chord with teenage audiences, particularly teenage girls. Just as Episode I drew more young female fans to the series with Queen Amidala—a heroine just as ready to be marketed as a Disney-esque Barbie-doll as a G.I. Joe action-figure—Episode II continued to reel them in with a love-affair just dangerous enough to be exciting, but not openly sexual enough to be threatening.

There’s enough subtext boiling just underneath the surface throughout the film to keep attentive viewers clued in—an attempt to poison Padme with phallic-centipedes while she lies sleeping in her bedroom, a female assassin with changeling powers, and just enough backs and midriffs bared in leisure and battle to entice without calling attention to themselves. Furthermore, as the chaste romances of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and the recent Twilight phenomenon have proven, there’s still an audience for old-fashioned romances that place more of an emphasis on rising action rather than climax. Sometimes Lucas expresses the courtly, chivalrous attraction in touching visual cues—the lovers sharing a kiss as shadows on the wall, or a bride taking hold of her husband’s prosthetic hand after taking their vows. Even though it would’ve been nice if Lucas had been daring enough to push the boundaries just far enough to risk a PG-13 as he eventually would in Revenge of the Sith, it’s likely for the best he restrained himself. Any attempt to steam up the Anakin and Padme chemistry might have very well undermined the movie entirely—all one has to do is recall the sight of a post-coital Clark and Lois in the Fortress of Solitude from Lester & Donner’s Superman II to see how ridiculous bedfellows sex and superheroes can make under the wrong circumstances (though I haven’t read them myself, I’m told the same can more or less be said of the various permutations of human, vampire and werewolf love in the latter, more mature Twilight books). At the very least, it’s a comfort to know that Lucas could at least do a Tristan and Isolde story better than Tristan and Isolde.

III: Through the Darkness of Future Past

The second, and perhaps more dangerous narrative flaw that disrupts the flow of Attack of the Clones is its obscurity. While throughout each of the other five Star Wars movies Lucas is careful to both create films that exploit the potential of episodic continuity while managing stand on their own individually, here he falls into the biggest traps of serial storytelling, creating a film that is overly reliant on chapters past to be understood and appreciated. Furthermore, the problem is compounded by the film’s antecedent nature to the original three pictures as the middle-part of the Prequel Trilogy—not only does Episode II rely upon Episode I for its meaning to take hold, but EpisodeIV, V and VI as well. In some ways, this problem is somewhat elementary, and maybe even unavoidable. As he did before with The Phantom Menace, Lucas finds himself telling the beginning to a story that everyone already knows the ending to—since audiences had already seen A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi for the past twenty-five years, it would seem reasonable to compose the latest film with as many references and resonances to the old films as possible, especially given the director’s long-observed penchant for thematic-repetition of images, events and dialogue.

And to his credit, much of this works, and in some cases helps to support the sometimes flagging structure inherent in much of the rest of the film. Padme’s stilted, anachronistic romance with Anakin gets the extra-mileage it needs from the knowledge that they will one day sire heroic twins Luke and Leia, just as Skywalker himself can be excused from the expectations of being a charming, charismatic lead considering his destiny as a brooding, wheezing Sith Lord. Even Christensen’s adolescent whine could be chalked up to a kind of retrograde family trait—an acting style begun with Mark Hamill’s callow youth and passed down from son to father, instead of father to son. Besides picking up the slack for some of the looser elements of the film, Lucas’ references to the future events of films past sometimes indeed do work on their own, despite how feverishly they appear to cling to a broader, more demanding context. Take the bounty hunter Jango Fett, for example, and the army of clones produced from his DNA. As the genetic “father” of Boba Fett, one of the most famous supporting characters from the Original Trilogy, Jango’s inclusion struck many critics as a cynical ploy on Lucas’ part, intentionally cashing in on figures with a large base of fanboy-popularity as a means of making up for the widely decried Episode I.

But the presence of Jango Fett is a far smarter, more meaningful move than some commentators give credit for. As played by capable New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison, Jango stands as a classic movie tough guy, a blunt mouthed thug-for-hire who’d be just as intimidating in a fedora and trenchcoat as he is in battle-ready armor. Thanks to the advances of special-effects technology from the days of Empire and Jedi, Lucas is finally able to take full advantage of the array of weaponry and gadgets he and designer Joe Johnston dreamed up for the bounty hunter’s arsenal. From jet-packs and flame-throwers to the deadly and distinctive starship Slave I, Fett is an impressive character and a challenging foe, worthy of Marvel comics and Bond films alike, more than a match for the Jedi heroes and a fine excuse to stage some of the most inventive action set-pieces of the director’s career. Fett’s connection to the burgeoning clone army makes for some even more impressive intertextual connections between the films of the series, and at the same time providing an easy-in for relative newcomers unstudied in the increasingly obscure lore and arcane of the Star Wars mythos.

While the Clone Wars may have occupied all of one or two lines back in the original film, meaningful only to longtime devotees who pour over every such fleeting scrap of stray mention, Lucas does a good job building up the cosmo-political conflict and mysteries sufficiently to make the genetically spawned military intriguing on their own. Doug Chiang’s design for the clone soldiers’ armor helps compound the connections, blending the distinctive shapes of Fett’s suit with the memorable all-white uniforms of the Imperial troops from the Original Trilogy. Even the most casual of observers can recognize Stormtroopers when they see them, and to see them fighting alongside the Jedi Knights at the end, instead of against them, is a dramatic inversion of expectations that pays off tremendously. Backing that up is the internal continuity of the film itself, as our heroes unquestionably trust the million-strong clones of one of their deadliest enemies—the Jedi may not gouge out their own eyes, but they remain blind to the sinister plot unfolding around them. Thanks to the bright idea of a military force cloned after a notorious bounty hunter, Episode II is the closest Lucas has come to hard science-fiction since the white-on-white days of THX 1138, with the eerily relevant themes of genetic experimentation giving way to a contracted mercenary army. What are the tall, Close Encounters of the Third Kind-esque aliens but agents to a massive government conspiracy, a Blackwater-style private-military company?

Furthermore, the cognitive dissonance he exploits with his Clone/Stormtroopers is a trick he plays with throughout the film, right from the very first shot. Instead of the usual pan-down which begins every Star Wars film, he pans up to Padme’s sabotaged starship as it pilots into orbit about Coruscant. Perhaps most famously—and to some fans, controversially—he put a lightsaber into the hands of the iconic Yoda, whose famous words “War does not make one great” take on a new meaning when we actually see the pint-size Jedi Master, fresh from a CGI makeover, prove himself to be a great warrior, after all. It’s a reversal of expectations so out-of-character, it packs the same kind of punch as Sergio Leone’s slow reveal of Hollywood favorite Henry Fonda as the blue-eyed monster of Once Upon a Time in the West. As iconic Star Destroyers rescue the our heroes, we witness the film’s political treatise put into pictures—on a long enough timeline, democracies always become dictatorships. Whenever Lucas plays with his audience’s expectations instead of simply giving into them, Attack of the Clones is smart as a space-opera can be, expressing visually for an entire galaxy what Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight summed up in its best line—“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

IV: For Those Who Came In Late

Yet there remain moments throughout the picture where Lucas throws references to the Original Trilogy that exist without any real justification of their own and risk alienating less well-versed fans. Be it Obi-Wan’s sarcastic line that Anakin will be the death of him, R2’s carrying a message from (instead of to) Kenobi at the Lars homestead on Tatooine, or even a brief cameo by the holographic blue-prints of the Death Star itself, far too many moments ring as hollow in-jokes, without any real meaning of their own, or any reason to exist in the film, except for hindsight. Such instances count little in the grand scheme of things, however—providing nibbling distractions or at best haunting echoes, and nothing more. It’s when Lucas invests too much meaning in his obscure references, however, that he runs the risk of squandering his enterprise’s potential with misspent creative energy. Perhaps the best example of this is in the scene where Anakin recounts discovering his now-dead mother to Padme in the Lars’ garage, finally confessing his slaughter of an entire village of Sand People—men, women and children, alike.

It’s a disturbing scene, ably acted on both sides, far overpowering any of the dark deeds committed by Vader’s hand in the Original Trilogy—instead of executing Rebel fighters in the midst of war or Imperial lackeys in a gallows-humor running-gag, young Skywalker commits an all out genocidal massacre, providing the pivotal push for his fall from grace. But the overly familiar setting, where Luke will one day glimpse a holographic message of his twin-sister for the first time, clouds our emotional focus. Instead of merely distracting us, it actually detracts from the drama of the scene, injecting an inappropriate layer of nostalgia into a moment which should be as uncomplicated as possible. It’s a setting that might’ve worked well, cementing much of the vulnerable feelings of anger, regret and Oedipal guilt—here in finding one’s self unable to save a mother, rather than despoiling her in a marital bed. When Padme enters the scene, it’s worth noting that she carries a glass of blue milk to Anakin, right before he breaks down into his mea culpa for the Tusken killing field.

As a triggering signifier of repressed guilt, it’s a detail as important to the overall tapestry as the bleeding-milk moments from The Manchurian Candidate or Munich, but Lucas remains unable to draw attention to the powerful maternal-sexual symbol as Frankenheimer, Spielberg or even Cameron did for any number of reasons. Partly it’s because the milk stays in its cup the whole time, instead of making a mess that audiences might’ve taken notice of—if Anakin had actually spilled some milk, it might’ve been worth crying over. Partly it’s because the milk is blue, denying it the immediate one-to-one connection between its real-world counterpart and the array of meanings it arrives with. Mostly, however, it’s because the only people who actually know what blue milk is are Star Wars fans—specifically the eagle-eyed variety who can spot the azure beverage from a long-shot’s distance and make the connection between it and Luke’s dinner-table conversation with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru from A New Hope, where the young Skywalker is served the very same drink. In fact, you’d have to be well-read on any number of supplementary texts—from comic books and tie-in novels to behind-the-scenes documentaries and making-of books—to even know that it was milk in the first place, much less from what type of otherworldly creature it sprang from.

Thus is a potentially effective thematic connection rendered unintelligible and meaningless in the white noise of modern franchise-narrative obscurity. It isn’t the only instance, either—you’d have to read a published script or sit through the film’s credits to learn that the stubborn Jedi librarian Obi-Wan seeks help from early on is called “Madame Jocasta Nu”, a name that would have underlined the Oedipal dilemmas of the film had Lucas bothered to have McGregor say it out loud. Later on, when Kenobi stumbles upon the mysterious clones grown on an unheard of world, the planet’s residents insist the army was commissioned by a long-dead Jedi called “Syfo-Dias”, who at first appears to be a lynchpin in the elaborate conspiracy, but clumsily winds up being dropped without any further mention whatsoever. What might’ve been a mere red-herring becomes a maddening loose-thread, and it’s only when filmgoers bother to read the merchandise novels or comic-books published under the Star Wars brand-name that one stands any chance of understanding what the hell is going on.

It’s a trait that has grown more and more common among filmmakers creating multi-media franchises to support their ambitious movie serials—the Wachowski brothers poured much enthusiasm and effort into the making of Matrix-related comic-books, video-games and animation projects, but wound up littering the actual theatrical sequels to their film with far too much intertextual pollution, rendering Reloaded and Revolutions hard to understand for those who didn’t watch The Animatrix. Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko follow-up Southland Tales found itself equally hamstrung by a prequel graphic-novel penned by its director, who later all but admitted it was expecting too much for most filmgoers to do such homework before going to the movies. Even 2009’s blockbuster Star Trek didn’t really make any sense unless you’d bothered to read the Countdown comic-book, which went out of its way to explain the motivations of characters who were barely even introduced in the film. As the man who pioneered the trend of movies marketed by tie-in products, Lucas deserves some of the blame for the way countless filmmakers have neglected the coherence of their flagship films for the sake of ancillary media, but not all of it. What he cannot be excused from, however, is the undisciplined storytelling he exercises here—expecting audiences themselves to pick up the pieces to a puzzle he never bothers to put together himself.

V: Do You Want Me to Draw You a Picture?

Thankfully, Lucas is far more careful and sophisticated in his undisputed area of expertise—visual cinema. Again flanked by cinematographer David Tattersall and a team of designers headed by fashion-expert Trisha Biggar and conceptualist Doug Chiang, the director’s work on Episode II is some of his clearest, brightest and most dynamic yet, a spectacular mix of jaw-dropping vistas and eye-popping compositions across a wide spectrum of environments and atmospheres throughout the universe. As always, Lucas demonstrates a daring command of the cinemascope frame that even contemporaries like Spielberg, Scorsese or Coppola have never mastered—each of them still obviously more comfortable in the more intimate realm of 1.85:1 than the widest of widescreens around. Two things set his work on this film apart, however— his head-first dive into the brave new world of digital-video filmmaking, and his expanding vocabulary of cinematic references to classic films of long past and recent memory. Lucas’ shift from celluloid to digital cinema was one the director had long planned, as far back as The Phantom Menace. That film was shot with Arriflex 35 milimeter cameras mounted with an anamorphic-lens to compress his preferred 2.35:1 aspect-ratio into the Academy-35 format. One can see a slight curvature of the frame in long-shots thanks to this method, an effect that the director sought to avoid with long-distance shooting techniques. This time working with Sony’s CineAlta digital-video camera, Lucas was free to shoot without the slight fish-eye effect of the anamorphic-lens and as such worked much more liberally as a director than he had on any project before.

The camera of Attack of the Clones is far more mobile than the static-approach of Star Wars films past. While Lucas continues to rely on careful compositions and tableau throughout the film, he often integrates slight movement through slow pans, dollies and zooms throughout, freeing the image from the sometimes claustrophobic confines of locked-in still-life shots of the past. Furthermore, in many scenes he pushes the camera in closer to the actors, using Steadicam to stabilize and retain his polish during moments requiring quick tracks and repositions. This allows the camera to cohabitate the setting more immersively, giving a fine texture to some of the more mobile moments shot on location in Seville’s Plaza de Espana (where David Lean had previously shot scenes for Lawrence of Arabia), and Lake Como’s Villa del Balbianello (where Martin Campbell would later shoot love-scenes for Casino Royale). Amongst the aged green-domes, cobblestone gardens and wandering piazzas, one can detect a hint of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, and its peculiar blend of sci-fi pop and Kafkaesque parable amidst the Italianate architecture of Wale’s Portmerion—a connection that wasn’t quite so self-evident in the more baroquely shot The Phantom Menace. Lucas’ camera warms itself to the wholly invented environments as well, blending easily between physical sets and digitally fabricated panorama. Perhaps the best example arrives during Obi-Wan’s investigation on Geonosis, whose catacombs and cathedral-quiet open spaces glimmer with Catalan-style architecture inspired by Antonio Gaudi’s blend of surreal, earthy gothic.

With new methods based on new technology, Lucas finds himself able to loosen some of the restrictions of past films, necessitating less reliance on sometimes contrived angles and profile shots designed to enhance the two-dimensionality required of an aggressively flattened image. However there are still moments when Lucas’ experiments don’t always pay off, mostly involving the use of telephoto-lenses with the CineAlta camera. With the Arriflex, this approach worked to increase the range of the camera’s resolution, creating a sharper image on screen from distant-shots and toned down the anamorphic-lens’ distortions. With the CineAlta, however, there is a problem—digital-video already comes with a high degree of resolution that leaves the picture crystal-sharp without any trickery involving lenses. As such, when Lucas uses his old lens-heavy approach, especially during more naturalistic two-shot set-ups made possible by the camera’s greater range of intimacy, we are left with a flattened image that matches up a little too well with environmental elements, both on-set and digitally inserted, a deep focus that sometimes confuses what is background and foreground. Instead of making the scene look more natural, he actually winds up heightening the artificiality of the surroundings. As a growing pain, it’s an understandable misstep and one that he takes care not to repeat throughout the picture, and on the whole we are only left with an image that is a far brighter, clearer one. Thanks to digital cinema, he finds himself a man with a much more thorough command of the scope in his busy visual world.

In the second case, the widening range of films Lucas draws from has been a part of his repertoire since the very beginning—A New Hope famously gleaned from the films of John Ford, Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa just as much as it did ancient mythology and classic fairy-tales, and each subsequent entry in the series kept that tradition alive. But in Attack of the Clones, we witness a great many references to films that would ordinarily fall outside the boundaries set by previous Star Wars films. Besides nods to jidaigeki and World War II pictures, it’s easy to see moments pocketed from film-noir and even musicals. Sometimes these elements stand out—Anakin and Padme’s political conversation during a picnic on Naboo recalls Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music, another old-fashioned love-story told on the eve of a dictator’s rise to power. Other times, elements hide in plain sight—the Venetian-blinds of Padme’s penthouse bedroom and Yoda’s meditation-chamber, a modern piece of domestic design found nowhere in the Original Trilogy but everywhere in detective films filmed and set in and around the 1940’s. Perhaps most importantly, Lucas delves more deeply into some of the genres that Star Wars films most closely identify with—science-fiction and westerns. Early on in a breakneck chase by the Jedi to catch an assassin on the city-planet of Coruscant, Obi-Wan and Anakin take dangerous falls from dizzying heights in the neon-drenched night-life districts, recalling films as distant as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to as recent as Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element and Ridley Scott’s seminal Blade Runner.

Like Besson and Scott, Lucas takes a great deal of inspiration from French comics-icon Jean “Moebius” Giraud, whose influence on the Original Trilogy can be seen as far back as the probe-droid from The Empire Strikes Back. Scott’s film—like Attack of the Clones a blend of genetically driven sci-fi and Raymond Chandler detective story—might be the most explicitly quoted film of the three, as the chase leads the Jedi through an industrial landscape of smoketowers belching toxic flames, an image right out of the opening shots of the famous Phillip K. Dick adaptation. By incorporating obvious nods to his influences, Lucas is at once owning up to nature of his pastiche-driven technique, and incorporating the themes and ideas present in those work. This is particularly apt in the appropriation of Scott’s blend of sci-fi—suspicious of corporate overlords and personal identity alike, an existential parable of bold, decaying futurism. Usually these references help underline aspects that are already apparent in the story, but at key moments they can also help to articulate ideas that he could never get away with in the conventional confines of family-friendly filmmaking. Just as the ending of A New Hope is widely recognized for quoting from Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda-epic Triumph of the Will, subtly indicating the hollow quality of the Rebel’s short-lived military victory, so too does Attack of the Clones very visibly quote from a well-known, somewhat unlikely picture—The Searchers.

Filmed in 1956, John Ford’s tale of Confederate veteran Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returning to Texas after the Civil War to find his brother’s family slain by a Comanche raid, the wife and eldest daughter violated so bad that even he can’t bear to look. While he and part-Cherokee family friend Martin (Jeffrey Hunter) spend years on the trail of the younger daughter, they learn that she has grown into a young woman (Natalie Wood) raised by the Comanche tribe, and as time goes on, Ethan believes the only way to bring justice is to find the girl and put her out of her misery. Wayne’s performance stands as one of the most unsettling and effective of his career, playing a racist, violent man with no illusions of his moral character, who can only find peace and solace in the destruction of an enemy who has taken everything from him. But to modern audiences, what is far more evident and palpable in the filmis not the usual vilified portrayal of Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages, but instead is the unspoken emphasis Ford places on the awareness and coldblooded treatment of sexual-violence. As much as anything, The Searchers is a story about rape, and thanks to Lucas’ careful imitation of a handful of shots as Anakin approaches the Tusken Raiders who have abducted his mother, so too is Attack of the Clones, however briefly. While critics were quick to point out the similarities between Luke’s discovery of the burning Lars homestead in A New Hope and Ethan’s discovery of his brother’s ranch after the Comanche attack, it is only in Episode II where Lucas explicitly uses to The Searchers to articulate through reference that which can only be implied in the body of the film itself.

Again, we have a potential problem in the making thanks to the relative obscurity of the director’s connection—unless you’ve seen Ford’s film and understand its sexual, as well as racial politics, it may not be entirely clear exactly why the Sand People have abducted Anakin’s mother. All you get from the movie itself are the unsettling implications of Pernilla August being found victimized by beatings and bondage, and her delirious last moments, but even those slight clues are enough, a set of discreet signifiers as polite and unsettling as Bunuel’s perverse glimpse of snails on a murdered girl’s legs from Diary of a Chambermaid. And besides, The Searchers also only ever really alluded to the worse-than-death-fates visited upon the women who Ethan spends years trying to avenge—with nothing more than a few stone-faced shots of men standing at the threshold of crime scenes, only just barely able to look in at where the camera dare not point itself, the film eloquently addresses the subject of sexual victimization without ever needing to lay it bare for all to see. Just as Ford did as much as he could to imply the full extent of the Commanche’s attack through visual and verbal cues (all those cries of “Don’t go in there!”), Lucas plants enough evidence in the mere trauma of Shmi’s capture and murder to deliver the film’s most potent emotional moment. Perhaps the price we pay, as an audience, for such ultra intertextuality between the director’s filmmaking and world cinema is its increasingly insular-franchise mentality, but when Lucas concentrates on delivering goods with as much of a connection outside of Star Wars as within it, and with such bold, risky strokes, it’s hard to take your eyes away.

VI: We Won’t Know Where We’re Going ‘Till We’re There

Of course, there can sometimes be too much of a good thing, and in Attack of the Clones there is certainly an excess of Lucas’ trademark set-pieces. While his penchant for punctuating otherwise dry plots of political filibustering and mystical headscratching with all manner of thrilling sequences helps to make his films much more open and accessible, it has the potential to result in long stretches in which talk and substance are forgone entirely in favor of the spectacle of special-effects fireworks. Consider the fact that in the first hour of the film, we witness an assassin’s bomb, an attempted bedside poisoning, a high-speed and higher-altitude chase through a busy sci-fi city, a rainswept fight between a heavily-armed bounty hunter and a Jedi Knight that eventually turns to fisticuffs, and an asteroid-belt set cat-and-mouse dogfight involving mines, laser blasts and a homing-missile. All of this is to be expected from a Star Wars film, of course, and as usual happens to be staged, shot and cut marvelously. Unlike Michael Bay, J.J. Abrams and other filmmakers of today, Lucas places a maximum premium on clarity and coherence in his set-pieces, striving to help the audience understand the mechanics of an action-sequence rather than merely feel its shock-and-awe. Only Michael Mann consistently outperforms him in terms of inventiveness, realism and style, with Bond and Zorro-maestro Martin Campbell close behind.

But what remains, for the rest of the movie? Aside from the necessary plot and character advancement, every Star Wars movie must pull out all stops for its last fifteen-odd minutes. A New Hope had an aerial battle in space, The Empire Strikes Back a show-stopping lightsaber match, while Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace had both, as well as some slightly underwhelming guerilla warfare with kid-friendly Ewoks and Gungans. Attack of the Clones, however, is a different beast, because it lacks the same kind of focus the rest of the series’ episodes thrive on in their conclusions. From Anakin and Padme’s escape through the droid-factory of Geonosis to Christopher Lee’s one-of-a-kind duel with Yoda (not to mention a briefer, but perhaps more visually impressive bout with young Skywalker, their glowing swords the only sources of light in the dark), the film’s ending stretches, drags and plods through an ever-escalating series of one over-the-top action set-piece after another. Granted, there is much to admire, but perhaps too much—a gladiatorial fight against enormous beasts that mimics both sword-and-sandal epics and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion marvels; a large band of Jedi Knights facing off against a small army of battle-droids, and a long montage of Clone Troopers in battle, with war cinematography and increasingly bizarre war-machines seemingly patterned stock footage of World War II. If you think it’s exhausting just to read a summary of all that, imagine how tiring it is to watch.

In a sense, the endless parade of battle which occupies the last quarter of the film is reminiscent to the entire running time of Stuart Cooper’s classic Overlord, that peculiarly hypnotic WWII blend of drama and documentary footage that gives a new meaning to the word “experimental”. That film can be something of an endurance-trial too—only nominally dedicated to telling its story of a young British recruit (Brian Stimer) anxiously awaiting the D-Day invasion and haunted by visions of death on the battlefield, Cooper spends much of his time offering footage culled by the Imperial War Museum into a kind of motion-picture mosaic, intercutting occasionally with his fictional frame-story, expertly shot to blend in almost seamlessly with the real-life coverage by John Alcott, a favorite cinematographer of Stanley Kubrick’s. The film is at once a powerful historical artifact and a thoughtful meditation on the role of the individual in the soulless machinery of modern warfare. So is Attack of the Clones, and when the seemingly endless succession of escalating climaxes is viewed in the same perspective as Cooper’s seemingly endless demo-reel of British war curiosities, it carries a power of its own, flatly casting a spotlight on the dispiritingly mundane character of the battlefield, especially when engaged by a war fought by two sides of proxy-armies controlled by the same mastermind.

But even this cannot quite excuse the diminishing returns of excitement one feels once the sheer routine of set-piece after set-piece becomes apparent. It becomes especially frustrating when one realizes how little some sequences have to do with the overall plot, and how easily they could’ve been excised if it weren’t for editor Ben Burtt—an accomplished sound-designer, but considering the several glaring continuity errors found in this film, a man who should be kept as far away from an editing table or Avid machine as possible. A perfect example is the very first sequence of the film’s protracted ending, as Anakin and Padme find themselves separated in Count Dooku’s battle-droid factory. A late addition to the film during reshoots, the sequence was quickly previsualized, and then shot in less than four and a half hours. As a piece of impromptu filmmaking, it shows Lucas at his most versatile and inventive, even when putting the vast armies of a major motion-picture studio under his command. As an example of psychological mythologizing, it puts an action set-piece to tremendous work with the factory floor’s automated conveyor belts, chopping blades and deadly-lava unspooling a whole textbook full of classic neuroses up on the big screen. Finally, as a sequence of action, suspense and pure, visceral cinema, it shines with the same kind of punchy, flash-bang direction that fuels the best moments of A New Hope, complete with surprisingly welcome humor from R2-D2 and Anthony Daniel’s C-3PO.

But no matter how impressive, smart, or just plain fun the sequence is by itself, there’s no disguising the fact that it does nothing in the narrative except stall for a while until the heroes find themselves captured, something that could’ve been done in far less time and with far less effort another way. Had Anakin and Padme discovered a secret-message, stolen-plans or any kind of all-important object, the scene might’ve carried some extra weight to justify all the urgent running around. It’s nothing short of surprising to see Lucas, of all people, fall prey to adding a sequence with so little in the way of plainly articulated motivations, as far as the story goes. Without a plot-device, the plot itself suddenly disappears for a good five minutes or so, leaving the audience with nothing but an extended drum-solo of action-beats divorced from any meaningful purpose. In the convoluted Rube Goldberg-machinations of a piece of two-dimensional pulp-fiction, you need a MacGuffin to bait any kind of narrative hook, a carrot on the end of a special-effect rotoscoping stick just to string the audience along. Perhaps sequences like these were dreamt up out of a sense of set-piece envy in the face of enterprising new directors strutting their stuff in the Lord of the Rings and Matrix trilogies, among other works, and while Lucas’ competitive spirit against the likes of Peter Jackson and the Wachowski Brothers can sometimes be invigorating, the end results, with their occasional lapses in cohesion, can all become rather tiring after a while.

During the production of his protégé’s debut feature effort, Francis Ford Coppola remarked “This is either going to be a masterpiece, or a masturbation,” just as Lars von Trier once described himself as a “simple masturbator of the cinema.” Maybe that’s what all filmmakers worth a damn really are, especially those who continue to direct highly divisive cinematic efforts that audiences continue to debate years after their initial release. You can see it in the way Jean Luc-Godard grew increasingly hostile towards the world in films like Pierrot le Fou and Made in USA, loudly assaulting his viewers’ patience in a desperate bid to keep Anna Karina’s attention. You can see it in the way that Lars von Trier punishes all his heroines from Breaking the Waves to Anti-Christ, inflicting just as much pain on his audiences as the movie-star martyrs who go through the motions of his avant-garde passion-plays. In the end, the very same thing can, and perhaps must be said of the Star Wars series, once one realizes just how self-indulgent it is. Lucas has often said that the only thing he really cares about while making a movie is whether or not he, personally, enjoys watching it—everybody else is just along for the ride. While in Episode II, he and the various assortments of critics, fan-circles and filmgoers at large obviously didn’t see eye to eye, there remains an admirable quality to the manner in which the director blithely disregards any concern for what audiences think of his work.

If you want to see how personal this film is to him, all you have to do is watch how Lucas mines his own work, as well as that of Ford or Kurosawa, for additional meaning at key points. The all-white interiors Obi-Wan tours of the clone-planet of Kamino recall THX 1138, an appropriate connection for the Stormrooper’s dystopian aspects. Before that, the Jedi is given a lead on his case from an old friend who runs an American Graffiti-style diner on Coruscant, invoking that free spirited charm and high spirits that preceeded the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and an age of assassinations. Episode II may be the most awkwardly paced and disciplined film of Lucas’ career, but it might also be the most personal, as is all self-indulgent cinema. It is more intimate, more exposed, and less caged in by the creative restrictions of common sense. Finally, you can see it in the way that George Lucas passive-aggressively toys with a devoted, bipolar following of fanboys who insist upon dissecting and contesting every narrative and aesthetic move he makes, seeming to give them everything they want with one hand while tossing all expectations to the wind with the other. No matter how much he wants to create a crowd-pleasing hit that unites audiences and critics in the same way the Original Trilogy did, in the fight between the director’s commercial and artistic sensibilities, it is always the latter that tends to win, even if they only amount to pyrrhic victories, leaving so much collateral damage in the film’s wake, and little wonder that their poisonous fall-out carries such a long half-life. If the original films ushered in a brave new world of near-utopian feats at the box-office, then the Prequels are positively post-apocalyptic.

After all is said and done, perhaps the greatest testament to the enduring legacy to Episode II and the Prequel Trilogy in general is the fact that it has such an enduring legacy to begin with, even if it is largely a negative one. Unlike many panned films from almost a decade ago, Lucas’ latter-day Star Wars films continue to be reviewed in a variety of mediums, mocked for any number of perceived faults, and argued over by fans and critics alike. Simply put, after all these years, the conversation surrounding them hasn’t ended, and isn’t likely to cease any time soon, as passionate supporters seek to defend it, even in the face of overwhelming objecting opinions. The fact that so many people are still talking about these films, even to decry their motives and attack their substance, stands as proof positive enough that they succeeded in making a permanent mark with audiences, providing a series of expert escapist adventure every bit as disturbing and thought-provoking as they are entertaining– love it or hate it, the movie remains a frequent talking point, and that makes it a modern classic. If Attack of the Clones is the most Oedipal entry of the Star Wars series and George Lucas’ filmography at large, then it stands as the most Onanistic, as well, and if you haven’t gone blind or gouged your own eyes out by the final, bittersweet happy ending, then perhaps it’s time you owned up to what the film really is, warts and all— a guilty pleasure worth being proud of.

*Note: This piece is, in part, intended as a rebuttal to the recent upswing of Attack of the Clones criticism since the Easter posting of Red Letter Media’s latest piece of anti-Prequel reviews up on YouTube. Its writing was begun far sooner than that, however, with drafts dating back even before RLM’s infamous series on The Phantom Menace. My own essay on that film can be found over at Ari’s site, The Aspect Ratio: http://www.theaspectratio.net/phantommenace.htm

Jesus. The only thing I can say, other than this exhaustive essay left me with a headache and want for a promotional sized bottle of Tylenol, is: HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!! Bob, no offense, but I do believe that same-sex marriage is legal in certain parts of California and Mr. Lucas, from what I understand, is single… There may be hope yet…… LOL!!!!!!!

Dennis, I’m going to remember this comment the next time Fish waxes rhapsodic about Peter Jackson. Or the next time you gush overflowingly about a film over comment after hyperbole-ridden comment. Or the next time Sam calls something a “staggering masterpiece”.

ALL KIDDING ASIDE: you gitta give credit where its due. This is a expertly written, insightful and brilliantly conveyed analysis of a film that has never been taken seriously enough to warrant such an examination. My hats off to BOB. I don’t know of too many people who could have done as thorough a job. I don’t necessarily think this film warrants or even invites this kind of treatment but, hey, it makes for some interesting ideas and reading. This is one of the few essays posted at WITD that has left me beaten-up.

I agree that it doesn’t really invite this treatment because it wears its depth very lightly. It’s a fun film (and there’s no reason a purely fun film can’t be brilliant and likewise no reason why depth per se should be considered a plus) first and foremost and nothing gets in the way of that

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the prequels and I enjoyed seeing them though the experience tended to fade afterwards rather than stick. Maybe a re-viewing would change my mind but my feeling is that of the two terms you use, density is more fitting than depth…

Seriously, my problem with the prequels was that they seemed to have such potential, without quite living up to it. (The third one came closest but still didn’t quite reach the heights it could have.) In the end, maybe this “backstory” was best left just that. The Clone Wars/Old Republic stuff is so much more powerful when it hovers in the dusky past, activated by our imaginations. Such a spirit also fits the more careworm texture of Episodes IV-VI in which the universe feels lived-in instead of merely busy. Even approached sans knowledge of the original trilogy, the prequels engage with all sorts of mythological devices, as Bob notes above, but do they really deliver on them? Or are we left painfully short, making excuses so that our minds can make that leap into the realm of mythos Lucas seems to be viewing from above (like Moses at the Promised Land) yet unable to trespass. At least that’s where I found myself, reflecting on the films afterwards…largely frustrated that all the raw material was there for an epic mythic tragedy but it never quite gelled.

Man, this is something I’ll probably revisit in another essay at some point in the future, but I think the biggest mistake Lucas made in developing the prequels happened years before they were ever even made, when he described their basic outline in interviews during the production of “Return of the Jedi”. By telling us explicitly, however hintingly, about the fall of the Jedi, the rise of the Empire, and Anakin & Obi-Wan’s fateful lightsaber duel on a volcano planet, Lucas effectively spoiled the whole substance of the Prequel Trilogy before pop-culture even had enough time to give “spoilers” a name. It’s all part of that same oft-quoted problem of hype and expectations– in hearing the general story of Episodes I, II and III, fans developed a relationship to the Prequels more akin to a novel’s devoted readers than to anyone awaiting unproduced films. Just as readers can get rather feverishly protective and clingy to source material when a film adaptation makes even slight changes (just look at fans of “Lord of the Rings” who cried foul when Tom Bombadil was dropped), fans took offense over any element in the Prequels that didn’t fit into story they’d been told to expect– and considering the very broad strokes that Lucas described his backstory with in those interviews, that accounts for quite a lot.

The Prequel Trilogy films, in my opinion, are all actually rather solid, inventive and clever pieces of action/adventure and sci-fi mythologizing, in many ways smarter and savvier about things like religion and politics than the original films ever were. The issue is this: do you look at them, first and foremost, as films, or as films that are based-on an old story you heard once? This is the problem for a lot of fans-turned-critics– whether they knew it or not, they looked at the movies as adaptations, and treated them as such.

Dunno, it seems that even if Lucas kept his trap shut the prequels would have been “spoiled” more or less. What was at stake was not so much the plot development, which everyone knew ahead of time, but the execution. Take another prequel, one much-maligned but which I found extremely powerful (as did Stephen and, if I’m not mistaken, you liked it too, right?): Fire Walk With Me. Everyone knows who killed Laura, more or less how it happened, etc. The film’s strength is not in how expository it is but in how it provides an EXPERIENCE, immersing us in a world in which – knowing the outcome – the pathos are even more pronounced.

I’m not saying Lucas would/should have taken a similar approach to Lynch – indeed, his prequels spanned years rather than a day or two, among other obvious dissimilarities – but his project had the same potential. Like classical tragedies, knowing the outcome could have made the film even more powerful. Where it falls short then is not so much in its predictability as in its hollowness. You note the religious and political “fleshing out” but to me this is evidence of where Lucas went wrong, embroidering the doodles on the periphery rather than the figures at the center. Phantom Menace is Exhibit A in this regard, and I’m still kind of surprised it’s your favorite! I could see a stronger case being made for Sith and Clones than Menace which just feels so darn small in the scope of things.

The framework was there for a really powerful myth/tragedy/epic but Lucas went wrong in a couple regards. One was, ironically, a lack of levity to counterbalance the pathos and make them seem less self-serious. The performances in the original trilogy have been criticized, but they did contain a certain wry, goofy charisma. Oddly enough, the sense that the movie did not take itself too seriously allowed one to relax and become unexpectedly receptive to the mythological overtones – it put down one’s defenses so to speak. The prequels were so earnest that one struggled to meet them halfway, conjuring up the appropriate mindset. If the early films captured the spirit of a precocious child, innocent yet cognizant at the same time, the later films feel more like pretentious adolescents, puffed up on their own “intelligence” without realizing their limitations.

On the other hand, where the movies SHOULD be “serious” they can’t quite summon up the gravitas. The overreliance on CGI gives the whole trilogy a weightless feel (how much of the power of Vader’s confession relies on the ominous sense created by actual sets and matte paintings, whose very limitations evoke a solidity lacking in the chemerical digital backdrops? Not to mention the weirdness of what seem to be CGI-inflected lighting cues in the prequels). The performances, while never an immense strong point of the Star Wars saga, still feel much weaker in the newer films than the originals.

Most of all, there’s a curious lack of imagination – Lucas threw himself into the storytelling of the originals with childlike gusto but maybe 16 years was too long to contemplate the follow-ups – the prequels have a turgid, forced, tired feel to the narratives. They seem perfunctory and lugubrious in their development, while simultaneously trying to compensate with a distractability that never allows us to settle in to the whizzing worlds on display the way we settled into Tatooine, Hoth, or Endor. Everything passes by too quickly and none of it sticks, while the stories seem disposable, flimsy cloth-lines on which Lucas can hang his surprisingly threadbare developments, mostly bunched up at the end of Sith (a friend once suggested that Lucas should have junked the idea of three prequels, and made just one – not a bad suggestion, I think. Actually, that’s more or less what he did the first 2 are so disposable).

These, anyway, are my impressions years after the fact. Perhaps on a re-view I’ll be much more forgiving, having already gone through the stages of Star Wars grief – denying that the prequels were as weak as they were, disappointed (I can’t say I was really ANGRY) when I couldn’t apologize away their flaws, reasoning that the mythical resonances were worth the dramatic missteps, resignation to the notion that they just didn’t live up to their potential…all that’s left is acceptance of them as they are.

I HAVE always wanted to watch all 6 films back to back, viewing the saga as one continous story unfolding (in this sense, and perhaps this sense only, the beefed-up Special Editions could be a boon, adding to the sense of continuity). Oddly, I never did so. Just as I saw Phantom Menace an embarrassing number of times in the theater (motivated by a crush on Portman alongside my Star Wars mania) but then never bought it on video, just as I never re-watched the prequels after seeing and generally enjoying them in theaters (though, as I’ve related, the eventual fallout was less satisfying), I’ve never followed through on this gesture which I feverishly anticipated as a kid. Perhaps I should; if nothing else, Bob, your essay may have finally pushed me to complete that “ambition”… (Now I guess I should finish reading it 😉 )

Man, regarding FWWM, I think it’s important to remember that when that film came out, it was widely despised. Like SW, people tended to be very selective in their memory of what made “Twin Peaks” work, with most people concentrating on a lot of the superficial folksy charm elements that they’d later get in dreck like “Northern Exposure”. It was a pretty daring move by Lynch to decide not to wrap up a story whose cliffhanger ending would not be satisfied by network TV (“How’s Annie?”), and though the decision to make a prequel might’ve been primarily dictated by Kyle MacLachlan’s unwillingness to dedicate too much time to a role he already feared he was being typecast as, FWWM’s brilliance was in its confrontational streak. It forced viewers to watch all the things that had more or less been deflected by the series’ reliance on the supernatural as a narrative crutch– here, we were forced to watch a father brutally abuse, rape and murder his own daughter with very little in the way of his demonic possessor to let him off the hook.

Perhaps the thing which makes FWWM work for you, wheras the Prequels do not, is that Lynch’s focus is entirely personal. Lucas’ scope throughout the Prequels is a far wider one that, despite being primarily focused on the boy-who-would-be-Vader, is much more concerned with portraying a broader range of characters and their places in society. Perhaps he hadn’t realized that the story he was telling was, in some ways, more of an ensemble than a traditional drama composed of concentric rings of characters all orbiting around a single protagonist– what the PT required was less the Lucas of the OT and more the Lucas of “American Graffiti”, doing an expert juggling act with all his assorted storylines.

Granted, at the end of the day I’m happy with the way the films turned out, and mostly I’m just sort of shocked they turned out as they did with all their focus on the elements you feel are out of place, all the peripheral political gambits. There are plenty of technological issues one has to deal with in transitioning from one trilogy to the next, but again, I’ve always seen just as much artificiality in the old method of effects as the new– the way TIE fighters or other layer elements can all take on a rather odd shade of blue from all the optical compositing; the way explosions all look painfully flat and transparent; the way that the scales of models, miniatures and even matte-paintings don’t quite match up with one another. Even in expert hands, effects like these always show their age after a long enough time, and my eyes aren’t quite colored with quite the same hue of nostalgia as yours are, in this regard. Regarding planets, frankly I just plain really liked Naboo and Coruscant– I guess city-worlds just appeal to me.

It’s interesting to think of it now– if I’ve ever had a “least” favorite entry in the series, it would probably either be ROTJ (even I’m not immune from disliking the Ewoks occasionally) or, heaven forbid, ESB. Back when I was younger, “Empire” was actually the SW film I had to make an effort to enjoy in a lot of ways, not because it was darker, more ambiguous or anything like that. Frankly, it was because I didn’t buy much of the acting– it all felt hollow, flat and terribly over the top. I couldn’t stand to hear Ford, Fischer or Hamill emote one-liners that sounded as though they were penned by a screenwriter with only a vague, superficial idea of how characters in a sci-fi movie should talk. To this day, I still cringe whenever I hear words like “laser-brain” or “scruffy lookin'”. Wooden as they are at times, I tend to prefer the more restrained performances in the other SW films because they feel far less artificial than the at times strained theatricality of “Empire”, a film which contains a whole lot of “drama” (in the teenage-girl vernacular sense of the word) but very little “truth”.

Granted, this is a matter of personal taste. I don’t like watching performances that seem as though they’re being belted to the back-row of an audience. It’s one of the reasons I tend to shy away from classics like “Casablanca” nowadays (a good movie, but after a while it feels more telegraphed than Western Union) or “Gone With the Wind” (a movie I have never, ever liked). At times I think of “Empire” as a kind of watered-down blend of “Star Wars”, one where the narrative, pacing and performances are all brought to such a heightened emotional point it practically goes from being a space-opera into a soap-opera. It’s a much more mainstream film, which at times helps considering how challenging the substance of its story was at the time of its release, but after all’s said and done I much prefer to take my SW straight up, no ice.

It makes me think, to an extent, about the question of whether or not you can outgrow a film, or filmmaker. Some directors whose work I greatly appreciated in years past I’ve now grown rather tired with (Terry Gilliam can only entertain and astound for so long before I grow weary of his shoehorned cynicism; Woody Allen’s movies stopped impressing me with their wit and glamour about the time I realized that there was far more mid-life crisis wish-fulfilment in any of his movies than there are on even the most banal of sit-coms). Of all the “Star Wars” films, I think I can safely say that “Empire” is the only one that I feel at times I’ve grown out of– like “Avatar”, it’s obligated to inject those wry bits of goofy charisma to endear us to a story that it feels audiences would otherwise laugh off. At times its characters all but wink and put quotation-marks in the air to emphasize the jokey nature of being in a sci-fi film. It’s a snappy bit of sarcasm that perhaps a wider reach of audiences can identify with, but after a while it just feels rather condescending.

Still, I continue to hold ESB pretty high, mostly for its story, its action and its visuals (too bad Peter Suschitzky didn’t shoot the rest of the series). But even if the Prequels are at times somewhat hoarse and awkward in their articulation, I prefer them a little more for their confidence in being what they are without tossing any bones to the audience. They are true to themselves.

Bob, I agree with you entirely on FWWM, and on what its virtues are. (As I said, it’s STILL much-maligned but the comparison was meant to be a “personal” one – i.e. what that prequels works better for me, and, I’d argue, better in general, than SW.) I guess I wish Lucas HADN’T made the prequels an ensemble piece. At the end of the day the only story element that really holds me is Anakin’s descent into the Dark Side – it’s both what makes me frustrated with the film (because I wish it had done it better) and potentially forgiving (because at least it gives us that, to a certain extent). I’m actually quite fascinated by the political intrigue as well but only inasmuch as it corresponds to Anakin’s old fall – it should amplify his personal tragedy rather than carry on with too much of a life of its own (which is what all the tedious bureaucratic trade-talk gives it). The movies should have been quite simply, the tragic downfall of Anakin Skywalker against the backdrop of the Old Republic. So I guess ultimately I’m looking for less American Graffiti and, yeah, more Laura Palmer.

Your points on Empire are well-taken. As I’ve grown up I’ve come to realize Star Wars is both my favorite and the best of the saga. That said, it doesn’t really partake in the Vader mythos at all does it? He’s pretty much a conventional – albeit compelling – villain there (I have serious doubts about whether Lucas intended him to be Luke’s father at this point, whatever he says after the fact.)

The curious thing is I like Star Wars-itself and the “Star Wars saga” as a whole for rather different reasons, come to think of it. (This only just occurred to me as I typed it now.) Not sure what to make of that, but there you have it…

Some brief notes: It’s interesting to see that what you hoped to see in the Prequels is almost directly opposite of what I’d been thinking about seeing since I was about ten or so. What I wanted to see most were Jedi Knights in their prime, the fall of the Old Republic & the rise of the Empire, the fabled days of the Clone Wars, and Boba Fett (because, hey, I was ten). As such, I got pretty much everything I wanted out of the movies– hell, even just seeing the Senate and hearing the name “Palpatine” spoken out loud were high points for me. In the end, you get out of the experience what you put into it.

Re: ANH– I don’t know if it’s my favorite anymore, but by conservative estimate I’d say it might be the safest and best choice for the best of the series. It basically has all the right elements in some balance or another. I’d say Vader’s a much more compelling character than mere villain in the film. There’s a nice kind of nobility to him in comparison to the common Imperial stooges; even when he chokes that guy for mocking the Jedi tradition, there’s something likeable about him in a ruthless way. As for how much of the Vader mythos was thought out ahead of time, I don’t know and frankly don’t care too much. It’s plausible that Lucas might’ve had Luke’s paternity planned out from the start, and if not I wouldn’t hold it against him. If all his talk about the “Tragedy of Darth Vader” really is a load of bull, I think it’s mainly motivated by how dismissive people tend to be of authors unless they’re working from a “master plan”. It’s the same way people are suspicious of the creators of “Lost”, even in its final season, accusing them of “making up their stories as they go along”. If only more people understood that’s exactly how the best stories tend to be told, in the first place…

“In the end, maybe this “backstory” was best left just that. The Clone Wars/Old Republic stuff is so much more powerful when it hovers in the dusky past, activated by our imaginations.”

A good point but the fact that the backstory didn’t interest me / passed me by at the time made me more receptive for the new films. I’d quite forgotten the backstory. I know it’s different for other people.

I think the epic mythic tragedy could have been stronger too, but no Sci-Fi / fantasy films have come closer. Actually, I believe the sweep of the action, the use of colour and dynamism, of grand exchanges and duels could have been bigger and more striking.

Along this line, one thing I appreciated about the PT (but haven’t commented on yet) was how they added another hazy, mythical backstory into the narrative’s past while fleshing out what used to be a backstory here. Just as ANH sketched out the days of the Old Republic, Jedi Knights and the Clone Wars with only a handful of lines, so too do the films of the PT sketch out the days of the old Sith Empire from a thousand years ago.

Here’s what I had hoped for from the prequels, in order of importance:

1. Personal drama. The tragic fall from grace of Anakin Skywalker, along with his doomed love, complicated relationship to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the foundation myth of Luke & Leia. The films did deliver on this to a certain extent, though it was bottom-loaded in Episode III and throughout the trilogy was diluted by lots of mundane distractions.

2. Historical backdrop. Like you, I wanted to see the grand old days of the Old Republic and the Jedi Order and the Clone Wars. To a certain extent, we did (though it was less grand than expected – justifiable in the sense that the past is always colored by nostalgia which distorts what it was “really” like). However, it took Lucas too long to get to the red meat – isn’t it only at the end of Episode II that the Clone Wars finally begin?

3. New developments on par with those in Episodes IV – VI. Here I didn’t think the film really did deliver. The new worlds were dealt with, for the most part, glancingly, without the sense of texture and focus the original trilogy brought to it (the exception being Coruscant, which was already substantially revealed in SW multimedia long before the prequels came out). The new characters and storylines were mostly forgettable. The subplots ended up being tedious distractions from the real drama.

As I said in my original comment, Vader IS compelling, it’s just that he’s not much more than a traditional bad guy. Bad guys are often interesting – but we don’t usually expect them to be central tragic figures when they’re introduced as conventional villains. Hence my speculation that Lucas’ conception of Anakin-as-Vader was actually a re-conception.

And heck, I wouldn’t hold it against him either (I don’t really) except that he’s so pompous about the saga’s mythology at times that it’s refreshing to see the Emperor without any clothes once in a while. Look, in many ways I love the guy – he certainly fired my imagination in my youth, and what he did with the original film remains one of the signature achievements of its era. There’s a reason the movie changed the face of cinema, for better or worse – it was remarkably sui generis (yes, there’s all those influences, but what he did with them was fresh and exciting). But every balloon needs a little deflating. And when I see an interview from 1978 in which he admits that Star Wars was supposed to be a one-off (and recall that it did not contain the title “Episode IV” on original release) I get my pin ready.

1: I enjoyed what we got of the personal drama, especially in seeing it become more complicated than was initially anticipated. TPM’s child Anakin is probably what threw viewers off the most and put the whole trajectory of his descent to the dark side into very different terms than expected, but I like how it starts things off at a level playing field before the upswings of adolescant angst in AOTC hits the stage. It makes his transition to a moody teen that much more violent and jarring, and Anakin himself a more confrontational character. He’s like a younger cousin or nephew you haven’t seen in years, one day a carefree kid, the next an arrogant, know-it-all high schooler. As for AOTC and ROTS, I actually think they divide the leg-work of Anakin’s fall from grace pretty darn well, between the loss of his mother, the temptation of Padme and the self-fulfilling prophecy of her demise.

2: This is gonna sound weird, but when I was in elementary school, I really wanted to see the Senate, for some reason, and find out how it worked in the Old Republic. All we got in ANH was the tidbit that Leia served in the legislative body and that the Emperor dissolves soon into the film, so therefore I was pretty curious about it for a long time. I really fell in love with Lucas’ visualization of the galactic congress, with all those flying-saucer opera-boxes, resembling so many “bumper cars in space”, as a friend once said– to my mind a more or less perfect metaphor for politics, and one later literalized in ROTS, to boot!

I think that it’s important to see how Lucas spends much of TPM illustrating what the Senate is and how it works, so that in AOTC he can use more dramatic shorthand in the political backstage of Palpatine’s emergency powers as the start of the war. True, we only see the opening and closing shots of the Clone Wars in the main body of the series, but that’s all we need, in my opinion. I’d rather watch “Saving Private Ryan” than “Band of Brothers”, any day.

3: I don’t spend a lot of time with the EU, so my exposure to Coruscant has mostly been limited exclusively to the PT films, and through them I think we really get to know the planet just as much as any other world in the series. We see its highest skyrise penthouses & its lowliest slum-neighborhood diners, its posh operatic theaters & downtown sports-bar dens. Most importantly, we get to know it as the home of the Galactic Senate and the headquarters of the Jedi Order, and watch as those two institutions slowly go to war with each other. Naboo’s screentime is also fairly decent and revelatory, and at the very least gorgeously visualized (I just love seeing old-world European palaces as the setting for sci-fi nobility– it’s practically Planet Visconti). Most of the other new worlds are given more cursory treatment, I’ll admit, but Geonosis stands out to me more and more, with its Gaudi architecture. The worlds of ROTS are pretty much phoned in (especially the fabled “volcano planet” of Mustafar) but I’ll take what I can get.

Finally, if I take an issue with the impulse to “deflate the balloon” of Lucas’ enterprise, it’s only because so much air has already been let out by zealously critical fans in the past, and usually over exceedingly trivial stuff. I’ll grant that most of the observations you’re making are pretty valid and worth mulling over, but first I feel it’s necessary to repair the reputation of a series that deserves far more serious attention than it tends to recieve. “Star Wars” has never really been the same kind of universally praised institution as Jackson’s LOTR trilogy or Cameron’s histrionic “Avatar”. Especially in the case of the PT, I think it helps more to raise it a little higher up the ladder before taking it down a peg or two.

THAT BEING SAID: Lucas probably was just making it up as he went along in the early days, though he certainly played it safe by keeping his backstory as vague as possible until the best ideas came to the forefront. Much of the pomp and circumstance I see in his demeanor concerning the film’s mythology I think can be attributed to how that sector of academia more or less embraced the films upon their release in a way that most high-minded contemporary cinematic critics were reluctant, if not outright hostile to. If Joseph Campbell sings your praises instead of Pauline Kael, it just makes sense to hitch your wagon to that train of thought.

A fatal alignment of many many circumstances: love of Padme, fear of loss, sense of not being trusted, the Iago / father figure Palpatine, confusion re the political situation, lust for power etc. etc. etc.

The more reasons perhaps the more weak each seems in isolation but I think it worked well.

This is also the thing, yes, that division of Anakin’s fall between the two films. I never really understood critics who said that his descent to the dark side felt rushed, until I realized they probably were only thinking about what was happening in ROTS without the broader context of AOTC, young Skywalker winds up breaking fundamental pieces of Jedi dogma (“Thou shalt not love; Thou shalt not honor thy mother & father”) and wound up murdering a whole village of men, women and children for it. If all you were looking was the third film alone, all you’d really have is Anakin’s desire to stop his dreams of Padme’s death from coming true (thus ensuring that they will, of course, according to the mytho-narrative law of ironic inevitability) and a shaky political conviction on his part that summarily executing an unarmed-prisoner in the midst of a coup d’etat is “not the Jedi way” (reminding me of all those comics/cartoons which showed the Justice League turning evil and dystopian after Superman loses patience with his Boy Scout ways and heat-visions Lex Luthor). Frankly, those should be enough, but Lucas even makes an effort to remind us of the events of AOTC with various echoes of his Tusken slaughter (Killing Count Dooku & the Jedi children, Palpatine’s comments).

So in the end, I suppose I don’t really understand the problem critics had with Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side after all, except perhaps that Lucas presented it as an arc, complete with rising action, climax and denoument (even if split across two movies), whereas everyone else only ever expected a simple fall.

I don’t have to much more to add to the conversation, especially since I’ll be re-watching the film in a week, after an interval of years. However, when you write this – ““Star Wars” has never really been the same kind of universally praised institution as Jackson’s LOTR trilogy or Cameron’s histrionic “Avatar”.” – it only seems to make since regarding the prequels. Sure, the original trilogy had its detractors but it was pretty widely praised and as a cultural institution, LOTR and Avatar can’t compare. Even after the benefit of another 30 years, I doubt they’ll be able to – if anything they’ll seem even slighter alongside Lucas’ bold invention of a universe. I’ll grant you LOTR probably won wider praise for the ENTIRE trilogy instead of just the first film, but it was also much more tepid praise, at least to my memory. Were there any major critics as exuberant about their love for LOTR to the extent some were about the first Star Wars? All I remember is a kind of awed respect, evidence of the fact that Jackson had skill but not much of a vision.

Well, what can I say? LOTR won a whole yachtful of Oscars, which is something that no SW film ever did, not even ANH (which was probably more deserving than “Annie Hall”, as a piece of pure cinematic zeitgeist). Granted, Academy Awards mean pretty much zilch, but they basically guarantee a film’s esteemed reputation for decades to come.

As for “Avatar”, fair point. Likely I should’ve included Cameron’s “Titanic” instead, as another shallow piece of entertainment than OD’ed on Oscar gold. My main point is really on Jackson and Cameron as filmmakers themselves. However, I will insist that both LOTR and “Avatar” fall prey to (and are subsequently excused of) so many of the same weaknesses and faults that Lucas is routinely accused of. Perhaps it’s that they had a sense of novelty for audiences and critics that the Prequels, by their very nature, couldn’t afford. If anything, it makes me feel sorriest for the Wachowskis, whose “Matrix” actually did bring something new and original to cinemas in ’99, only to be more or less dismissed when its own sequels came to round out the trilogy.

Forget about the yacht full of Oscars Bob, but to answer Movie Man’s query the answer is inescapable: The LOTR Trilogy earned far more spectacular reviews among th eprofessional critics than did the STAR WARS films.

Perhaps the most telling and impressive award of all was the Best Picture prize bestowed on THE RETURN OF THE KING by the NY Film Critics Circle, which in view of their long time reputation as elitists, is rather a miraculous event. But RETURN made hundreds of ten-best lists and figured prominently with other major groups as well.

So again to answer your question, Jackson’s films have always been better regarded than Lucas’ among the critics by quite some distance, for whatever that’s worth.

Considering the low opinion I have of ROTK, a sentiment I know is shared by at least a few here and elsewhere, it doesn’t count for a whole lot. A lot of the accolades for Jacksons films are in large part, I think, due to how they introduced Tolkien’s material to mainstream audiences. I wonder if Lynch’s “Dune” might’ve done the same to popularize Frank Herbert’s work had the director been given more leeway by Universal.

For me, the most salient point is this, however: years after their release, people are still talking about the “Star Wars” films. On LOTR, however, the conversation is pretty much over– they came, audiences liked them for the most part, and they went, without quite leaving that much of an impact behind. Like it or not, but open debate tends to be much healthier for a film’s longevity in popular memory than anything else.

You might also say, quite frankly, an impassioned sci-fi devotee and confirmed fantasy skeptic. Despite the heavy influence from so many of the usual suspects, I find that science-fiction remains a hotbed of all kinds of pioneering originality nowadays, home to so many different kinds of stories you literally have to break them all down into so many different subgenres– hard sci-fi, space opera, mad science, cyberpunk, alternate history, the list goes on. Fantasy interests me less and less over the years, primarily because aside from a few different authors (C.S. Lewis, Phillip Pullman), just about everybody in that biz tends to ceaslessly recycle the same old Tolkien retreads. The only popular creator who might arguably stand out in recent years is J.K. Rowling, and even she shows about the same originality as American sit-coms do in the shadow of Jackie Gleason. With few exceptions, the world of fantasy is a pretty small place, whereas science-fiction literally knows no limits.

The points about critical opinion and awards are well-taken. I guess it isn’t so much the critics who carry SW’s reputation, or even the audiences, as it is the film historians. Star Wars now has a firm place in the canon, in terms of its cultural impact there are few comparable films (as films – as mass media it’s untouchable). The Godfather, Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind are a few of the movies in the same category. Try as I might, I just can’t see LOTR joining those movies. All three are adaptations as well, of course, so it isn’t just the matter of originality – although those films took far more liberties with their sources, and also tended to eclipse the books’ popularity in a way Jackson never could with Tolkien.

But I guess I shouldn’t have phrased this as a point about critics – since such titanic status is not really a product of critical reverence but popular appeal, among other things. As Bob said, the discussion continues (though it should be clear by now that I’m not placing the prequels in that same category as GWTW, Wizard, etc. – just the original trilogy inasmuch as they’re seen as one unit, and fundamentally I’m really taking about the first film anyway). I just don’t see LOTR having the same legs.

All of which is not a comment on its quality – that’s another discussion – nor to speculate that it’s going to somehow fade away; I’m sure it will be an evergreen film, a classic for future audiences. I just don’t see ascending into the same arena as the “untouchables”, Oscars or no…

To make the context even more clear, I’d compare Star Wars within the film world to the Beatles within the music world in terms of longevity, influence, and popularity. There are very, very few movies which could sustain that comparison and I certainly don’t think LOTR is one of them. That’s essentially what I was trying to get at, however I mis-phrased it.

I wonder about LOTR’s critical longevity, as well, considering how little it really adds to cinematic language. Jackson’s style is incredibly learned from Lucas & Spielberg, expertly studied and imitated, but without any real stylistic additions of his own. When it comes to who stands out in the realm of blockbuster filmmaking in the past ten years, the canon will probably contain guys like Nolan, Cameron and the Wachowskis, but I don’t really know where Jackson will fit. His films couldn’t really stand to make any meaningful additions to Tolkien’s mythology in the same way that Coppola did with Puzo, and considering the cuts that were made to bring the stories to screen (I still hear fans griping about Tom Bombadil now and then) I wouldn’t even be surprised if we saw the books re-adapted at some point in the future (film & television rights not withstanding).

Regarding the PT– As a part of the SW whole, it’s definitely a shoe-in for the canon, merely by default. But it’s also shown a remarkable influence on filmmaking, in terms both technical (digital video, blue-screen & CGI have all risen in use, from guys like Rodriguez on “Sin City”, which I despise, to the Wachowskis on “Speed Racer”, which I almost adore) and narrative (prequelitis– without it, we likely wouldn’t have Nolan’s Batman wouldn’t begin again, nor would J.J. Abram’s “Star Trek” have gotten itself into such a time paradox). No doubt, their place in film history isn’t as certain as the originals, but they’re already part of the lexicon of pop-culture and modern cinema that makes them attractive enough to remain in the spotlight (or crosshairs) of critical debate.

Are they “Sgt. Pepper”? Nope. But they might just be the White Album, which would be good enough for me. At the very least, they certainly met expectations more than “Chinese Democracy” did (or at least that’s what I’m led to believe by friends who dig the good ol’ days of G&R).

Bob, I wouldn’t really put Jackson in the same category as Spielberg and Lucas. He swirls the camera around a lot, but – at least in his 00s blockbuster films – I haven’t seen him command cinematic language in the subtle way Spielberg can (think of the shot in Jaws where he uses the passing figures to cut into close-ups of Brody – is there anything like that in any of the LOTR films?). Lucas is strong in different ways, not so much in terms of casual shots but in the imagery he imagines and evokes.

I don’t really see Nolan’s stylistic panache either, at least in something like Dark Knight which, when you get right down to it, was all story.

Joel, it’s interesting that you note the “Jaws” scene where Spielberg intercuts between Brody and scenes on the beach with all the passersby walking in front of the camera. It’s a great example of the distance between the likes of him and Jackson, but at the same time it’s actually a moment that owes a little bit to Lucas, himself. Watch that scene again, and then take a look at Robert Duvall’s “confession booth” sequence in “THX 1138”, and the same thing is happening– Lucas uses passersby to mask cuts both in image and sound (taking us from outside the booth to inside). He only does it a little bit in that sequence, though, but the seed for how Spielberg will use it later on is there. That moment from “Jaws” is great, but it plays at least partly like a longer, more ambitious version of the “confession booth”.

At any rate, both are two of my favorite moments from those films, and fine evidence as to how they continue to outpace Jackson cinematically.

At first I was going to say “What – in ’75?!” but you make a convincing case, and obviously the two were good buddies. Indeed, my characterization of Lucas’ direction (which I like, but distinguished from Spielberg’s more adventurous aesthetic) was really more based on Star Wars, where he might have been hemmed in by the need for spectacle. Indeed, I’ve heard that THX demonstrates Lucas’ virtuoso filmmaking talents better than any other movie in the auteur’s oeuvre – and of course it’s the only one I still haven’t seen (not that there’s much competition…).

All I can say, Joel, is that THX shares the top-spot as my personal all-time favorite film, so I can’t do anything other than recommend it as highly and strenuously as possible. Then again, my other all-time favorite film is “Heaven’s Gate”, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Re: Spielberg’s “adventurous” aesthetic– he’s certainly looser, less restrained with his talents than Lucas tends to be. To an extent that’s fine, and simply shows where they learned– Spielberg is more Hitchcockian, while Lucas betrays a more Langian approach. And while Spielberg delivered some great work from the 70’s to much of the 90’s, I really don’t care for most of what he’s done this decade. If Lucas has been “hemmed in” since ANH, then Spielberg has more-or-less become thoroughly undisciplined since “A.I.”, or maybe even “Shindler’s List”, which is where he first teamed up with Janusz Kaminski as DP, a collaboration which I believe has contributed heavily to the director’s decline.

That might just be the best way to view the films. Like many other debut-features, THX is something of a skeleton’s key to Lucas’ work, as it contains nearly all the elements that find themselves spread throughout the rest of his filmography. I’ve shown it on a number of occasions (including a few times in college, in semi-public DVD screenings) and each time it’s been a big eye-opener to people who watched it. It makes particularly great double-bill material– I’ve shown it with “Brazil” in the past, but now I’d probably want to show it with Cronenberg’s “Stereo” & “Crimes of the Future”, or the classic New Wave coupling of “La Jetee” & “Alphaville”.

You do here what all good critics should do: be honest, serious and thorough. I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and you make many good points.

I understand what you mean about some of the issues in AOTC but I don’t necessarily agree.

The sequence at the droid factory is exciting for a number of reasons: Firstly, nobody has any idea what’s behind the door. Secondly it is as strong a metaphor for how Anakin loses Padme and his humanity as you could wish for as he struggles to not become part of the machinery / mechanics of the conveyor belt. Thirdly it’s just fun – for me motivations can go hang if it’s fun.

I see the films of the two trilogies as reflecting the age of their protagonist. The Phantom Menace is the most childlike and AOTC has a gangly goofy moody personality. I enjoyed the Romance because that’s what it was – a romance. Its awkwardness not only speaks of their relative ages, the constrictions of the Jedi Code but most importantly of the DEPTH of the feelings. They realise that they have started down a path that is potentially tragic but they cannot resist.

The choice to continue a relationship despite all the pressures and pains IS the consummation you talk about – more bold, more final than any sexual scene.

I think when you enjoy a film a lot (even though I think, like you, it’s the worst Star Wars film) the little niggles – the acting is wooden, the CGI battles are a little incorporeal – cease to really matter and may even become charming flaws, like a mole on the face of a beautiful woman.

Stephen, I’m actually not certain I would call this the “worst” SW film. It’s certainly the most problematic at times, but mostly I think those problems are worth it, and in many cases I think the only real solutions for some problems would’ve been unthinkable in a PG movie. Would the film’s romance have benefitted from an Anakin/Padme love scene? I think so, but at the same time I recognize it would’ve sent red flags flying everywhere. Also, it very well might’ve turned out ridiculous (again, see “Superman II”), and in the end “Hotel Chevalier” more or less satisfies whatever anyone might’ve wanted from that idea.

Frankly, there’s moments and elements from all the “Star Wars” films that bother me– including the high-heaven sacred cow of the series, “Empire”. Lucas’ story and vision are great, and Suschitzky’s lighting is some of the best ever seen in space-opera, but there are times when I can’t stand the hamminess of the acting Kershner encourages, or the lame sci-fi zingers Kasdan pens. It may be “everyone’s” favorite, but to me it’s possibly the most shallow entry of the series, intellectually. I’ll take AOTC’s ambitious flaws over that most of the time.

I too have problems with all of them but mainly because I like them so much and any issues become especially frustrating.

For me the prequels were a way into the Original Trilogy. I’d seen the Originals (good name for a band) on television when I was young and liked them – but not that much.

I was never a great Star Wars fan – I saw The Phantom Menace on DVD and not at the Cinema – until 1999. My brother and I had the entire figure collection and played soccer with them but it all clicked once I’d seen TPM.

TESB is my favourite followed by ROTS and TPM (which I like more and more).

The Romance was pitched right for me. I felt the attraction between them and that’s enough. You can feel the strength of the emotion that, effectively, drives the whole story.
I find that a consummation, within film norms, actually confuses the issue of what kind of relationship it is – is it ‘just’ an affair or a fling? Is it deep? As it is there is no way it can be confused for a platonic friendship. It’s a canny choice on Lucas’ part.

Re: Consumation– Like I’ve said before, perhaps you’re right. Either it can work, or it can look silly, or it can cheapen perceptions of a cheaper attraction, as you say. I wonder if it might’ve been enough to inject some slight amount of sex-appeal into the film without necessarily going all the way to consumation itself– when Padme talks about how she and friends used to go swimming in the lake and sun themselves on the beach, I wondered if Lucas could’ve gotten away with actually letting us see that. If nothing else, it could’ve been a nice nod to “Forbidden Planet”, and Altaira’s dip– “What’s a bathing suit?”.

Also– Are you talking about only having seen the OT on DVD? From what you’re describing, I’d assume that in ’99 you had seen TPM in the theaters…

“Also– Are you talking about only having seen the OT on DVD? From what you’re describing, I’d assume that in ‘99 you had seen TPM in the theaters…”

No. I saw the OT on TV long before DVDs existed. I saw TPM on DVD rather than at the Cinema because I wasn’t a particularly great Star Wars fan then. The other two I saw first at the Cinema. All three blew me away.

“I wondered if Lucas could’ve gotten away with actually letting us see that. If nothing else, it could’ve been a nice nod to “Forbidden Planet”, and Altaira’s dip”

Perhaps. It’s the age old problem of do WE, the audience, need to fall a little in love with the girl to fully comprehend what the boy feels? Some films go out of their way to let us see her in the way he does.

Okay, I suppose the timeline of seeing it in 1999 just kinda confuses me. TPM didn’t come out on DVD until 2001, and before that only on VHS (widescreen, thank god) in 2000.

Re: Altaira etc. Yeah, it also raises the whole issue of the subjectivity of the “male gaze” in cinema. When a director takes a more objective stance and forces the audience to come to their own conclusions, looking on at a couple as outsiders rather than necessarily being forced to occupy one or the other’s mindset explicitly, it’s a bit more challenging, and doesn’t always work with the limits of expectations in some genres.

Do we have to see Natalie Portman with her clothes off to fall in love? The broader question of nudity and attraction aside, Portman is one of the actresses who is more attractive the more, for lack of a better word, wholesome she seems. That’s why her recent role as a young mother in the American remake of Brothers was one of her more appealing roles (not to say it was one of her best) – it seemed to fit her better than the more “challenging” types of sexy parts in something like Closer. Though his clumsiness with actors got in the way of a truly effective performance, Lucas was dead right to cast Portman in the role. For the type of old-fashioned, yearning romance he had in mind here, she’s really the best choice.

My speculation on some sort of love-scene in AOTC mostly orbits around the central frustration I find in telling a tale of courtly love without an element of eroticism. Granted, chastity and fidelity are things that get played with in a lot of stories of the “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” ilk, but most variations on the forbidden-love story usually get up front about the sexuality sooner or later. In the end, it’s probably handled for the best, but I do think a little more spice could’ve been injected without it being too tasteless. Hell, look at how heated things got on any given episode of “Miami Vice” within the standards of broadcast television (then again, having Phil Collins to play in the background helps).

And yes, agreed on Natalie Portman being perfectly cast as the archetypal star cross’d femme fatale. Looking at how her decoy, Keira Knightley, has fared through the likes of pirate movies and latter-day soap-operatics, it’s refreshing to see a subdued romantic performance, instead of all that shallow covergirl pouting.

I dunno – characters are so prone to hop in bed these days that the eroticism’s gone out of most onscreen copulation. What’s left to the imagination is usually more enticing – hence a “courtly” love, in which the sexuality is subdued and withheld can be more powerful than one in which the tension is released.

Not that this is necessarily what happens in Attack of the Clones, but that may be due to other factors!

Anyway, this whole review & discussion have really made me want to revisit all the Star Wars films – and I’m plannign to watch them all again in about a week, as soon as I’ve the time and ability to gather them all together from Netflix. Should be interesting…

Again, I think of the sight of Superman and Lois Lane in bed from “Superman II”– you’re probably right. For me, there’s enough romantic wonder in moments like those shadows on the wall or Padme holding Anakin’s robotic hand to fuel the fires of a deeper, more meaningful attraction. Perhaps it wouldn’t feel so awkward if it weren’t, y’know, for the whole genocidal massacre thing that happens in the middle of the film. The closest our hero and heroine come to coitus in this film, besides their stolen kisses and that “Sound of Music” rolls in the hills, is when they fight side by side in the arena towards the end, with Portman even baring her midriff in the midst of battle. So even if it’s repressed, it’s got that classic Hollywood style of creative repression (again, this is where I see some of Ray’s influence, but let’s not open that Pandora’s Box again).

Good luck on your marathon. My only advice is to pace yourself– even with series I love to death, I personally can’t sit through any more than two at a time before fatigue sets in (I wonder if this is one of the reasons why so few enjoy “The Godfather Part 3”).

The depth of the commitment and love is clear. The more physical side goes without saying and indeed one need not enough think of it. We don’t see a myriad of things that are part of a loving relationship but they come bundled, unsaid, with what is made obvious.

There would have to be a very good reason to show it (it’s very rare for a love scene to add anything dramatically worthwhile to character and story) within what is effectively a children’s film.

Again, it’s mort about finding an outlet for all that pent-up frustration than cheapening the courtly love. It’s something that Lucas did pretty perfectly in “THX 1138”. Perhaps it is innapropriate in a children’s film after all, but it’s also a differing code of values– Rene Laloux’s animated films might nominally be consideered as targetted to kids, but there’s a whole lot of material that wouldn’t get past studio censors in the US (indeed, “Gandahar” was butchered by Harvey Weinstein for just such cartoon intimacies).

Strangely, however, I’m also now thinking of the way that sex was essentially made so negative and dangerous as a relationship’s deal-breaker in “American Graffiti”, where Ron Howard had to learn to love Cindy Williams without forcing her to put out, and Richard Dreyfuss’ self-consciously mythic vision quest for the “Goddess” in the T-Bird (complete with initiation into “The Pharaohs” and a pit-stop at the legendary Wolfman’s temple) takes him off the beaten path of getting laid with an old flame. Indeed, consumation often is contrary to the path of cinematic enlightenment (which would explain why Luke remained virginal throughout the OT).

Lucas does indeed use many references – to other films, to religion, to mythology – as shorthand. Only in this respect, given that most of the audience may not get these, even unconsciously, could I understand AOTC being called onanistic.

However, they are moments that do not call attention to themselves and therefore do not inhibit audience enjoyment if they do not understand them.

Again, on the droid factory sequence, isn’t it a spitting image of the scene in Minority Report?

I think one of the strengths of the Prequel trilogy is how Anakin is in search of a father or mother figure – Palpatine becomes the father and yes, in a way, Padme becomes the Mother. He rejects the loving mother to take the path of war.

Anyway, no matter how much pretentious nonsense I can come up with, AOTC is a very good film because it’s great fun. Because it’s great fun I want to look closer at it as you do here in this excellent essay.

The assembly-line sequence in “Minority Report” always reminds me of an old idea Hitchcock talked about using at the start of a film, where we’d watch a car being put together piece by piece in a factory, only to watch as a body was discovered inside once the vehicle was finished. It’s a great idea for a scene, but it doesn’t make a lick of snse, which is why Hitch never used it.

All things considered, I prefer the droid-factory scene in AOTC to the rather rote, cluttered action sequence from Spielberg’s film (seriously, he needs to stop working with Janusz Kaminski), but at the end of the day I think that the creative energy Lucas spent there would’ve been better devoted to later material. The factory setting probably would’ve been better off saved for the climactic Anakin/Obi-Wan duel in ROTS. Still, better a great misplaced sequence than none at all.

Stephen, I actually wrote a rambling comment once on your ROTS essay a while ago, but unfortunately I don’t think it took. I’ll have to recollect my thoughts and go back to it eventually. I really don’t know what happened there– probably something to do with the automatically generated password non-blogspot users have to type in, or something.

Okay, I think my comment there took this time. It’s definitely a great blow-by-blow set of observations on the film, and I hope you do same treatment to the other films. As I say over there on your site, what I like best is that pretty much all the comments you make there are things I myself didn’t really see, which shows both how big SW is for viewers and also how refreshing it is to get a second-opinion on anything, a fresh set of eyes.

Well, I don’t think that I’ll be doing a similar thing for the others because I was using ROTS as a way into discussing the entire Saga and, here and there, referring to all the other films. But, if I think there’s enough interesting I have to write down, you never know. I would like to put something down about TPM, which grows in my estimation as time goes by (without me necessarily seeing it again).

TPM would definitely benefit from another blow-by-blow account, and especially from another viewing. To this day, it’s the SW film I enjoy the most and easiest of all, alongside ANH. Even with the other Prequels, my reactions tend to be a little more mixed (beyond what I’ve illustrated for AOTC in this essay, ROTS often strikes me as a little thin, primarily because of the absence of designer Doug Chiang), and though I’ve always enjoyed the OT, only the first film ever entertained and intrigued me in perfect balance (ESB’s a bit too theatrical at times, ROTJ a little phoned-in on Endor).

At any rate, TPM never fails to impress me. If nothing else, I think you can really sense the joy and excitement Lucas has directing that movie, finally getting behind the camera in earnest for the first time in 20 years instead of handing off the duties to journeymen or marionettes. There’s an exhileration to the way he sets up his shots, captures his action and moves on to the next cliffhanger without nary a moment’s pause for breaths to be caught like so many flyballs. From “Ben Hur” pod-racing to the “Duel of the Fates”, Lucas lets himself go and returns to the screen in full force, the prodigal filmmaker finally come back to stay. It’s only too bad he didn’t get a warmer coming-home party.

Jar Jar bothers me, but only about as much as Deputy Andy does in “Twin Peaks” (“I’m a whole damn town!”). Long or not, the pod-race is probably my favorite cinematic racing-sequence in general since Frankenheimer’s “Grand Prix”. And the duel is astounding, shot-for-shot a perfect sequence.

In a lot of ways, I think the PT and TPM especially represent what Lucas had originally wanted SW to be like right from the beginning, before the compromises of accessible storytelling and the practical limitations of 70’s special-effects set in. Thanks to the OT fulfilling a lot of those narrative obligations and the advent of ILM’s advances in the 90’s, he was finally able to put his vision to the screen, and it really is a thing of beauty.

True, FWWM is Andy-less. However, there’s also no Truman, no Hawk, no Doc, no Horne Bros., no Jacoby, and perhaps worst of all, no Pete! Eh, at the end of the day we’re lucky we get Cooper and the Feds in the picture at all. Mighty cool seeing Jaques Renault again, though.

The difference between the beautiful compromises of the OT and the undistilled, but not quite universally pleasing vision of the PT reminds me, at times, of how Michael Mann’s cinema has changed since the advent of digital video. Now thanks to the longer draw he’s able to achieve with his higher resolution image, I wonder how much of the filmmaking fans fell in love with in movies like “Manhunter”, “Last of the Mohicans” and most especially “Heat” was founded upon the same kind of aesthetic compromises, and I’m curious as to how different films like those would’ve been if they hadn’t been shot with the limitations of celluloid in mind.

Bob, I haven’t seen Mann’s digital work. The clips and stills I’ve seen look muddy and drab – a far cry from the startling beauty of Manhunter. If that beauty’s the result of the “limitations” of celluloid, gimme more please! There’s a magic to film which digital hasn’t touched yet. In a hard to define way, it’s just colder, more sterile, almost on a subliminal level (I often know the feeling before I know the source, as I’m not very good at detecting the difference at first glance; and btw, not everything on film has that “magic” but it’s a property film can yield). There’s nothing quite like that moment where light filters through celluloid and the images pops – even transferred onto video you still get some of the magic.

I’ll jump in and agree with MM about digital films. I wouldn’t go as far as MM did (something like ZODIAC is beautiful and looks like a real film), but as far as Mann in concerned his digital films look gross. I watched PUBLIC ENEMIES this weekend, and all I can say about it is that it looked like an episode of CSI, or COLD CASE, or BONES, ect. So generic.

Jamie, Zodiac’s a good counterpoint though (and maybe it’s just because it’s a Fincher film) it’s still a little cold in some ineffable way. I loved the classicism of its approach, which maybe helps it play like a real film in other ways too. I’m not even sure I knew it was digital – but at the same time it never quite leapt out at me the way Manhunter did (a film, by the way, I found a mess but whose visuals proved impossible for me to shake). Very, very admirable rather than intoxicating. But again, I can’t really say this is because of the digital/film divide. Its beauty is just a touch more intellectual than Manhunter’s but again, how much of that is just the film itself – it’s a puzzle whereas Manhunter’s a dream. Is the fact that one’s digital, one’s celluloid then just a coincidence? Maybe.

But yes, overall, beauty is something this decade has all but killed in movies, aside from the cartoons. The magic has been replaced by a rather shallow braininess – while I’m prone to celebrate the kinetic over the pictorial you need a bit of both for both to work, a little bit of tension – otherwise it’s just images going nowhere fast.

Well MM yes, I also think the actual look it sometimes even beside the point. Yes digital is still catching up, and cinematographers are figuring how to make the films look more like ‘film’, but I also think an inadvertent result is the size and ease of the digital camera. This simple advancement has aided much of the ‘ugliness’ you speak of. Mann is always riding up on guys collars and moving around cars as they pull up– it’s just ugly filmmaking and I don’t know why he’s making the visual decisions he is. maybe Fincher’s more ‘classic’ approach (more cranes, and steady pan shots) is what I’m actually liking. not sure. Ford’s recent A SINGLE MAN was digital (and beautiful) as was ANTICHRIST, Malick claims some use of a Red One on his upcoming THE TREE OF LIFE. Coppola’s TETRO and YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH are digital beautiful films–TETRO is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen in a while.

Now if you are talking about the distancing effects of CGI I 110% agree. As real as AVATAR looks, I can never feel that much for anything that happens.

Ah – Antichrist! Now THAT was beautiful (the opening anyway). Gorgeous, in fact.

What it may do is take the digital and use it for what it is instead of trying to either ape film or be “anti”-film the way perhaps Mann is. That opening montage is sooo cold, but with an aching beauty that derives in part from the coldness. I remarked in my review how it seemed to mix “the aesthetics of advertising, the emotions of art, and the occasional imagery of pornography.” I had in mind the actual images being shown (along with the music used) but maybe it’s also the digital that has this unsettling effect – of being both transcendent and “fake” at the same time. I’ve heard people comment that digital’s true potential will be used when people treat it differently than film (and again, that means not just aping film but also self-consciously reacting to celluloid techniques). Maybe von Trier’s one of the first to do that (though the rest of the film, aesthetically, didn’t really do much for me).

Interesting that A Single Man was digital – I don’t think I knew this either yet I had the same response I seem to towards most digital – a kind of sterile, unemotional distance that was hard to put my finger on. Yet of course this is also due in part to Tom Ford’s overall approach, independent of his means.

CGI. I enjoyed Avatar but its spectacle was ephemeral – it slipped through my fingers and I couldn’t retain much of an impression afterward. I didn’t carry it around in my belly like I do with tactile, physical effectwork – even matte paintings have more of a “thereness” to them. Why can’t there be more puppet films? There’s an uncanny nature to puppetry which is elecrifying:

I’m not sure what to add here other than I think Mann’s use of digital from “Collateral” on is nothing short of beautiful. It doesn’t have the same kind of substance as celluloid, no doubt, but it allows him to play with color and composition far more frequently and fluidly, not to mention it brings such a great element of immediacy to his work that lets him short-cut and side-step his way around a lot of the rigid formalism that was evident in films past. Granted, I think a lot of us loved the classic, yet strikingly modern look and feel that came out of that formalism (it’s what earns “Heat” its status as “a Los Angelese crime epic” in the fullest sense of the tagline), but it’s easy to see how Mann has been reaching to break out of all those habits at least since “The Insider”. That film, from the way he pushes color to his newfound reliance on agressive hand-held photography, feels like it should’ve been shot on DV, and at tims I think the heavy look that celluloid brings hurts it a little, makes all the expressionistic tendencies in the director’s new aesthetic stick to the roof of your mouth a little. “Ali” was a bit more restrained, a bit more mannered even with the tone-poem approach he takes to the film (visually, it’s nothing short of a masterpiece– dramatically, it’s a little loose). Of the three features he’s shot so far on DV, I think “Collateral” is still the best– its simple premise is a perfect opportunity for Mann to perfect his craft and embellish the periphery with all his cinematic tricks, and the geographical/chronological containment of the story helps bring a great focus to his experiment that “Miami Vice” and “Public Enemies”, however impressive, sometimes lack. This is a new Mann, no doubt, but I like what he’s done so far.

As for DV vs. celluloid– Enough filmmakers have already shown you can capture enough of what’s possible with the latter through a creative use of the former, and a few more have pushed it in directions that simply wouldn’t have been possible in the old materials. Guys like Lucas, Mann & the Wachowskis (“Speed Racer”‘s kaleidoscopic cinema, courtesy of PT DP David Tattersal, wouldn’t have been quite as possible on celluloid) provide more and more good reasons to use DV with their projects, and considering how it more or less helps democratize the medium through cheapening it, I can’t see it as anything other than a good thing. It’s the same as whether you want to paint with oils, acryllics or watercolors– they all offer something different.

Stephen– excellent summation on how DV has opened up Mann’s cinema. The problem for many is that they’ve come to fall in love with his hermetically sealed worlds. I think his work has come alive in a great way, but at the same time I’ll admit I miss some of the classical style he had in the past. What I like best is to see when he can blend the two cinematic modes together, which I see primarily throughout “Collateral” and “Miami Vice”.

Re: Silly characters in “Twin Peaks”– all of them (and more) provided much of the folksy, if often ironic humor that helped deflect much of the disturbing qualities of the show. It’s why FWWM is so visceral and pure, and one of the reasons I think the PT works in a similar way at its best moments. It doesn’t have silly characters like Han & Chewie joshing around sarcastically, providing skeptics in the audience with an outlet that allows them to take the movie a little less seriously. The issue with both cases is that it’s silly characters that often help provide a way in for a broader range of audience– without Ben & Jerry Horne clowning around, viewers would’ve easily been put off from the increasingly darker & more disturbing elements of the mysteries surrounding Laura Palmer. FWWM had nothing but serious FBI men, Red-Room freaks & “a woman in trouble”, just as the PT had nothing but serious Jedi Knights, politicians & “a man in trouble”. The only outlet either has for all the tension are varying amounts of camp, which can channel some of the awkwardness in a productive manner but in the end keeps everything flowing towards tragic consequences.

I suppose it’s not just about “silly” characters, then, as it is about characters whose “silliness” is somewhat at odds with at least some of the tone of the series. The Droids are fine because they fit more or less perfectly within the sci-fi atmosphere of SW. Han & Chewie are a little more removed, owing more to old-school pirates & cowboys than anything set in space, but even they’re mostly fine as long as they stay within their limits (moments in ESB like Han’s smugness or Chewie’s “Hamlet” bit stand out badly). It’s like all the strange stuff with Mike & Bobby (“Don’t take any oink-oink from that pretty pig!”) or Cooper’s increasingly eccentric behavior– all of that fits in FWWM as well as the series not simply because it’s tied to the overall plot, but also because it matches the investigation’s tone.

Jar Jar has a function in AOTC, that’s certain. In TPM, however, I’ll be the first to admit that he feels mostly tacked on. Just as some of Han & Chewie’s antics from ESB rub me as too self-consciously adult, Jar Jar’s do so in the other direction. As I said in my TPM essay, it’s like dropping Roger Rabbit into Polanski’s “Chinatown”– yeah, they’re both L.A. detective stories set in the same basic time period, but their tones are entirely discordant and at odds with one another. Still, it could be worse– he could spend half the movie getting the munchies from smoking “toeweed” like the stoner Hobbits in LOTR (I really don’t mean to be a broken record about those movies, but this is one point that always bothered me, even enough to all-but celebrate Charlie’s demise on “Lost”)

Interesting notes on FWWM & the PT “knowing where they’re going”. Does this mean that all prequels have a sense of narrative freedom that allows them to get away with far more than traditional originals or sequels? I think it does…

By that, I mean this: The prequel provides a creator with the opportunity to tell a story whose narrative obligations are already in part fulfilled. Knowing the story’s ending ahead of time relieves the uncertainty of “what” with the newer, somewhat more intellectual mystery of “how”. It turns the story into a parlor game, something with the same mechanical intent as a murder-mystery, whose predetermined outcome lies in the future rather than past-tense.

In that sense, it frees the filmmaker from the majority of narrative heavy-lifting, allowing them to concentrate on the embelishments, the periphery– the “how”, rather than the “what”. This raises the problem of expectations in the viewer, however– just as a murder-mystery must raise red-herrings suspects for the audience to speculate before the true culprit is unmasked, the prequel implicitly poses any number of possible plot-strands to the viewer by inviting their curiosity to witness backstory, engaging their imagination to conjur up any number of “how”s before the work itself satisfies all questions. A key difference is that with the muder-mystery, each potential candidate is explicitly considered, vetted and cleared in turn.

There’s also the matter of all those stories and plays from antiquity that offered variations on all the same well-known myths and legends. Be it Sophocles’ “Oedipus” trilogy or Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur”, we already know many if not most of the tale’s particulars before they are told. What helps there is that the foundations are built upon stories that thrive in variation– there is not one single, definitive version of the stories of King Arthur or Oedipus Rex, and we’re likely to forever see storytellers work up new variations. Modern-day prequels have the extra burden of expectations as, with contemporary ideas of intellectual property and copyright laws, we’re likely only to ever see one version of the backstory– the notion of a remake of either “Star Wars” or “Twin Peaks” seems in many ways reprehensible, at least in their own indigenous mediums. Therefore, these prequels have a maximum of narrative freedom, but untold amounts of audience limitations.

In one sense, I think the PT spearheaded a whole popular movement for looking back and retelling stories and backstories in the movies, inspiring and encouraging the likes of “Batman Begins”, “Casino Royale” and the 2009 “Star Trek”, rebooting their stories by taking them back to the square-one of new beginnings (it also helped that each was based on a pre-existing media franchise, be they in comics, novels or television). At the same time, Lucas’ films are also a part of a larger cultural taste for hindsight, as far back as “The Godfather Part II” or “Fire Walk With Me” and as recent as “Memento” or “Irreversible”. One might even include revisionist historical films like “JFK” into this mix– if what is past is prologue, it is prequel as well, something to speculate upon and debate. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I like the SW prequels so much– they are their own conspiracy-theories.

I commend the author for a sprawling review which is remarkably authoritative. But I alwauys found this dull and bloodless film an impossibility to sit through. It’s bombastic too. I always liked this critical quote and it perfectly states my own position—

‘Watching Attack of the Clones is like getting rapped on the head with a rubber mallet — no lasting damage (I pray and hope), but bad enough to bring on an acute bout of dizziness and disorientation. Definitely do not operate heavy machinery after viewing — this behemoth is brutal.’

To me, that scene also highlights how deep the film can cut on a more meaningful level, as well. Say what you will about any number of the film’s other actors, but Pernilla August delivers a fine performance in her demise, juggling a lot of maternal baggage very nicely before choking on her death rattle. That she spouts off stuff that can’t help but make her son feel awkward and embarassed (“You look so handsome!”) only twists the knife, whose blade is finally broken off and left in the wound in her final moments, expiring before she can even finish saying “I love you”. It’s all terribly campy, of course, but in the very best sense, deepening the uncomfortable implications of the scene instead of deflecting them so audiences an have an easier time stomaching it.

I was intrigued with the idea that Nicholas Ray’s cinema has a formidable influence on Lucas. I do not dislike AOTC, but I haven’t seen it a single time since the original release. So I need to watch it again.

Ray’s cinema indeed has a strong effect on Lucas’ work, far moreso than tends to be recognized. Partly that’s because Ray’s most famous film, “Rebel Without a Cause”, has more or less been fully absorbed into the pop-cultural shared memory to such an extent that we often forget to think of it as a cinematic product by a specific author– the cult of Dean eclipsing the sun of Ray. But there’s key echoes throughout, especially of “Johnny Guitar”– granted, they’re not as specific as the homages of “The Searchers”, but they’re in there, in spirit.

Also, while I disagree with your appraisal of Lucas, Jamie, I have to ask– what’s so bad about a master having a formidable influence upon a novice? Isn’t that what masters are there for?

Style, I suppose. Both Ray and Lucas are very architecturally minded (not surprising, considering Ray’s background– and wasn’t Lang studying to be an architect at one point, as well?) which influences the way they concieve of and photograph their locations. I see a lot of “Johnny Guitar” in the environments of AOTC– the red-rock walls of Vienna’s casino & those exploding mountain passes on the Mars-colored, craggy grottoes and battlefields of Geonosis.

Actually, I’ve already written about Ray’s film back at “The Aspect Ratio”, as well, so I’ll just link the piece now before I start repeating myself. Rest assured, I love “Johnny Guitar” and AOTC both for pretty much the same reasons, as they subvert their respective genres just as much as they live up to them, and conjure up a fairy-tale image of the West or Outer Space: http://www.theaspectratio.net/johnnyguitar.htm

“Also, while I disagree with your appraisal of Lucas, Jamie, I have to ask– what’s so bad about a master having a formidable influence upon a novice? Isn’t that what masters are there for?”

Nothing really. I just happen to count Ray as a personal favorite, and dislike Lucas more or less. Imagine if someone you consider a hack (or hackish) was put in the same breath as Lucas. Like this: “George Lucas greatly influenced the films of Brett Ratner”. Don’t you take some offense to this, even if the intent wasn’t such?

I look forward to your ‘Johnny Guitar’ review (reading it now), but, and this is to Joel too, there are really no comparisons to Lucas. Sure you can stretch and twist and force one, but that’s not really being objective. I mean because there are red rock vistas in ‘Johnny Guitar’ and red rock formations in a Star Wars film that’s good enough? With this rational I could say the school setting of ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ influence ‘Save by the Bell’. It’s incredibly masterbatory.

To me Truffaut offered the best take on Ray in one paragraph (oddly enough for his review of ‘Johnny’): “A young American filmmaker-of the generation of Robert Wise, Jules Dassin, Joseph Losey-Nicholas Raymond Kienzle is an auteur in the best sense of the word. All his films tell the same story: the violent man who wants to renounce violence and his relationship with a morally stronger woman. Ray’s constant hero, the bully, is a weak man-child, when he is not simply a child. He is wrapped in moral solitude, always hunted, sometimes lynched. These who have seen the films I have just mentioned can multiply and enrich these connections for themselves; the others will simply have to take my word for it.”

I don’t really see the “stylistic” link myself. A limited “visual” link perhaps but in terms of mise en scene, shot structure, composition style, editing, etc. not so much… Ray seems to me a more, to use a dicey term, spiritual filmmaker whereas Lucas is cerebral – his films are largely conceptual, while Ray’s are tactile. Not that there aren’t overlaps (heck, one could run with James Mason in Bigger Than Life as the proto-Vader, embracing the Dark Side and trying to kill his son, if one were so inclined) but in terms of form I think you’re on safer ground with the Lang analogies.

I know that Lucas has mentioned the Ray influence re: “Rebel Without a Cause”, partially on “Amerian Graffiti” and on the character of Anakin in this film. “Johnny Guitar” is more of a gut feeling, and largely based on their own independent similarities than any actual causal link of influence. While I wouldn’t be surprised if it did inspire things here ant there in Lucas’ career (at least not as much as when I found out Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” was a big influence), I see it more as a kindred film than anything else.

As for the “Red Rock Formation” whatnot– I’m talking specifically about the similar grotto look both AOTC and Ray’s film have. Granted, there’s just as much of that in Bryon Haskin’s “Robinson Crusoe on Mars”, but frankly I just don’t like that movie quite as much. There’s also the matched contrast between the rugged naturalism and Vienna’s posh parlors and all the belle-epoque interiors of the Prequels, but like I said, this is mostly hunch.

As for the Truffaut quote: “All his films tell the same story: the violent man who wants to renounce violence and his relationship with a morally stronger woman. Ray’s constant hero, the bully, is a weak man-child, when he is not simply a child. He is wrapped in moral solitude, always hunted, sometimes lynched.”

Frankly, that sounds like just about every movie Lucas has ever made. Some of the characteristics are split between characters at times (especially in the ensemble of “American Graffiti”) but I’d say that description fits with all his dominant characters, all the way from THX & LUH to Anakin & Padme.

Movieman, while I’d never call Lucas a ‘cerebral filmmaker’ (unless my only other choice is ‘spiritual’) I think my quibble is more in semantics, and when I contemplate what I think you mean, I agree. What you are basically reducing filmmakers (and all artists really) to are either right brain practitioners (and these could be more cerebrally minded artists, or political ones, or ones that deal mostly with technical advancements–technical advancements is where Lucas would fit in my estimation), or left brian practitioners (this is what you mean by ‘spiritual’, the more creative personal expressionistic side of art). Ray is definitely on this side. Thinking along these lines one can very easily see the schism that exists between these two being compared.

Since I always think it is easiest to compare these things to modern visual artists, Lucas would be an MC Escher, or an Elsworth Kelly/Joseph Albers. Ray would be a, I don’t know, Francis Bacon mixed with Mark Rothko’s alienation(?). Thinking along these lines one can see the difference grow even wider.

It gets real foggy when a filmmaker is both highly personal and cerebral (Rohmer, Godard, Malick etc). But I think these three are easily on the Ray side of things.

I suppose this line of thinking also reveals why I do not like Lucas: he’s basically a right brained (cerebral as you say) filmmaker whose films are not intellectually grand. Instead, they are to sell toys and be watched by 12 year olds. Again when he’s compared to another truly intellectual filmmaker–lets say Rohmer– he looks like he’s barely graduated high school.

Jamie, that’s a much better characterization and does get at what I was going for here. Of course all filmmakers contain some shades of both “schools” but is remarkable how they tend to drift towards one or the other pole. I’m happy to have both sorts of artists working – makes the art all the richer.

Bob, when I see kinship between filmmakers it’s usually in terms of a sensibility (which often finds itself expressed in form). Lucas and Ray may tell similar stories, and occasionally use similar sets, but I don’t think they do so in the same spirit. I know the ways in which I respond to Ray and the ways in which I respond to Lucas (and I respond to both, at least when they’re on-game) don’t really overlap.

“Frankly, that sounds like just about every movie Lucas has ever made. Some of the characteristics are split between characters at times (especially in the ensemble of “American Graffiti”) but I’d say that description fits with all his dominant characters, all the way from THX & LUH to Anakin & Padme.”

See this is you as the fan boy over you as objective critic. Ray’s films almost always show the downfall of the male hero (sometimes in death), with the female surviving, or the female saving both. Lucas has shown time and time again men are overcome by other men, with the females never lasting (in power terms) and usually being little more then nice window dressing. You cite Anakin and Padme as examples, and I scratch my head–is this the same Padme that was overrun symbolically by her (male) husbands descent to the dark side and dies during childbirth? Consider the ‘Johnny Guitar’ connection, the female is the savior to every male in the film (the ones saved anyway). Even Anakin’s eventual downfall (films later) as Darth Vader is at the hands of another male. Female saviors never last in Lucas Worlds (and never really even start), you should stick to Lucas’ real themes (Christian anglo-messiah symbolism and/or Oedipal quandaries–the later which you already touch on). Even getting away from the female aspect, Lucas never even really presents males in any sort of need of being saved.

The THX connection is even worse, the female is removed from the equation long before the male can seek redemption or escape… and when he does, it’s alone. Comparing this to Ray is only applicable, if say Vienna is killed or captured and Johnny ends the film going through the waterfall alone. Instead she leads him through and they embrace and kiss and the films ends, TOGETHER.

What’s interesting here is that we’re discussing Ray as a writer more than a director – what about his directing styles does or doesn’t correspond to Lucas’? Even Truffaut’s quote conceives Ray’s auteurism solely in terms of his characters (though I guess we shouldn’t presume the characterization is entirely textual – the gift the French auteurists had, and why their work led to formalism, was to suggest a “cinematic” quality even as they were describing a film in literary terms).

(I’m also not sure to what extent his “authorship” extends to writing the movies – IMDb lists him as “uncredited” writer on most of his films.)

I should also note that Bob mentions Ray’s use of architecture and certain locations, but these are still the sorts of things that could be described in a screenplay. What about his formal decisions, I wonder, ties him or distances him from Lucas? I ask because I find myself drifting away from these sorts of descriptions all the time. It’s much easier to write about films as texts, it’s how I tend to remember them these days, besides which this approach lends itself far more ably to prose. But it does seem to be missing a crucial part of the “picture” so to speak.

Jamie– what it boils down to here is that you’re reading Ray primarily as a feminist director (at least in these examples). And that’s an interesting and persuasive argument. I’d argue that in the case of his debut film, THX only begins his liberation when LUH secretly takes him off of his meds. Anakin winds up killing Padme in a fashion that Humphrey Bogart’s screenwriter might’ve finally descended to in “In a Lonely Place” (I still can’t get used to that prepositional flux there). And hell, I’d cite specific examples of how Leia’s presence throughout the OT fits, but then this comment would start getting ridiculously long.

At the end of the day– Ray is certainly a more progressive director for his time, but Lucas is still more progressive than many directors out there, especially in his genres (Jackson & Cameron still seem to think tough women are something of a novelty).

This is an in-depth analysis. Well done. I really enjoyed Phantom Menace and saw it a number of times. I love the Ben-Hur pod race, and I love that masterpiece of parallel editing at the end that includes the thrilling three-way duel with Darth Maul.

I also enjoy Attack of the Clones – mostly for it dazzling variety of visual elements. I love the final, beautiful but ominous shot of the wedding party – may favorite closing image of all 6 movies. I also love the allusion to The Searchers when Anakin goes into the village to try to rescue his mother. That he massacres the villagers is a masterstroke.

This is definitely not the worst of the 6. Return of the Jedi is appaulingly bad and I never care to see it again.

While I don’t think ‘Jedi’ is the worst one (that honor goes to ‘episode 1’), I do think it’s the second worst. It began the real descent into making films for kids and marketing purposes over real cinematic reasons for Lucas. Good call for seeing this, most mainstream film fans think ‘Return of the Jedi’ is about as good as these films get.

I don’t think so, Jamie – most people seem to prefer Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars (er, A New Hope). But I’d place Jedi above any of the prequels, even Sith. It’s at least of a piece with the texture and spirit of the early Star Wars films (plus, it’s a good deal of silly fun). And the Vader ending does at least achieve the pathos much of Ep. I-III are seeking without success.

When I was very young, ROTJ was my favorite of the series for any number of reasons– everything at Jabba’s palace & the Sarlacc pit, the bigger look at the Rebel Alliance, the space battle at Endor– but mostly, it was for the scenes between Luke, Vader and Palpatine, and especially Vader’s unmasking. There’s such a great moral economy to those portions which do a great job of communicating the rather tricky subject of redemption in a way that’s remarkably clear-eyed and unsentimental for what is, ostensibly, a children’s movie.

It’s easy to say that the PT tries much harder to conjure up the same feelings that ROTJ sums up so sparely here– it’s like comparing an epic poem to a haiku– but at the end of the day I don’t think it detracts from the experience. If anything, I believe the genuinely dark deeds and moral conundrums of AOTC and ROTS add a great deal to those pivotal moments of ROTJ– before the Prequels, Vader was mostly just a stock supervillain in the hyperbolic register of Doctor Doom; afterwards, he’s become an anti-hero at best, and a cold-blooded murderer of women & children at worst.

I have to split my vote here– I’m with Hokakey on TPM (at times it’s my favorite of the SW series), but I’m not entirely sure ROTJ is my own least favorite of the series. It’s certainly the weakest of the bunch– the storyline is a little hurried and rushed at times, Alan Hume’s cinematography isn’t anywhere near as expert or polished as Suschitzky’s on ESB, and all the stuff with the Ewoks does at times strike as both condescendingly kiddie and somewhat unimaginative. At the same time, however, it has some of my favorite moments from the series– rescuing Han from Jabba the Hutt, Lando leading the Rebel assault on Death Star 2.0, and most especially the battle of swords and wits between Luke, Vader and the Emperor.

I’ll admit that I wish some more effort were put into the film in a few key areas. Still, I’ll take “Star Wars” at its least than just about any other sci-fi or fantasy franchise at its best (I’m lookin’ at you, LOTR).

Well, Bob knows my feelings on four of the six Star Wars movies, including this one. It’s an excellent piece, a treatise even, but I wouldn’t feel it worth the effort to write so much about something so disposable. It’s like serving cordon bleu **** food in a redneck diner, or writing a thesis on why suicide bombers have a rough deal in the press. No amount of eloquence can cover the fact that a plastic $1 digital watch is not a Rolex. It’s superbly written, Bob, but Jeze!

But hey, at least Bob picked something he knew not only wouldn’t make my top 100 of the 2000s but my top 1000. Revenge of the Sith might make my top 1000 of the decade, though, that was passable.

Oh, no doubt about the brickbats. Frankly, I’m sure I’ll have issues with whatever’s in your Nearlies, as well (I can think of at least one 800 lb. gorilla that’s likely to be in that room, if not the top 100). And pretty much everything you describe the “Star Wars” films as are how I’d sum up my feelings of Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” series– what seems a covergirl to some is nothing but a pig-in-lipstick to others.

As for the countdown, I think we’ll get along fine, or as close as we ever get to that, as long as Joss Whedon doesn’t rear his overwritten head (though considering his output this decade, that doesn’t seem likely even for you). Maybe we’ll even wind up in some odd “Heaven’s Gate” style moment of agreement that forces both of us to question our relative sanity. Granted, such things are rarer than a solar-eclipse, but you never know.

One more thing: Frankly, I do feel a little sorry for suicide-bombers, but only a little. Were they only detonating themselves at military targets, like the Kamikaze pilots, I think there’d be a little more sympathy in their direction as broken-spirited, violently-conditioned, thoroughly weaponized human beings whose brains have not only been washed by a repressive and desperate society, but “dry cleaned”, as the saying goes. But yes, going after innocent civilians pretty much earns you a choice spot in Dante’s map of the Inferno.

Male suicide bombers are promised x no of virgins in paradise. Were they seen coming. First by the Islamic fundamentalists who recruited them, then by the Prince of Darkness stepping out in his basement.

As for Whedon, no, not even I could justify Serenity in here. It was OK, but as with ROTS, it’d struggle to get in a top 1000 of the decade.

I’ll give Whedon this– “Dollhouse” was actually fairly decent as long as it lasted, or at the very least I thought its premise held far more potential than any of his other projects. Then again, the episodes that best took advantage of that potential were the ones he had the least involvement with (Epitaphs One and Two), so I suppose I feel nearly exactly the same about him as you do about Lucas, and vice versa.

Dollhouse was a decent premise with a well cast star, but it didn’t live up to the premise. It could have been something if he’d been bolder. Sadly, however, I think Whedon will struggle to get anything to rank alongside Buffy.

I will say this about this review, it’s made me want to revisit this film, as I saw it once at the theaters thought it ‘whatever’ and have only caught it since in chopped up form on television. Since Bob spent the time writing this piece, I’ll give him this. I’ll return (like the Jedi) once I’ll seen this again and I recover from the acting/dialogue.

I wonder at times if this is one of the problems “Star Wars” has run into with gaining a solid critical reputation– its ubiquitousness. The ever-present a media enterprise is, the easier it is to avoid taking seriously, and after a while ignore outright. I think of something like “It’s a Wonderful Life”, a movie which for so long coasted in generational memory as a seasonal favorite of Christmastime television, but not a whole lot else. Just as Capra’s film has only just recently been enjoying a critical reawakening as various DVD restorations have been released, revealing a much darker look at the American dream in Depression Era smalltown life, I believe that weekend TV staples like the Prequels stand a good chance of being taken a little more seriously when viewed in a new context. Perhaps those much rumored 3D conversions might get the snowballs rolling after all.

P.S. Bob – not to sound anal, but do you mind removing the “Best of the 21st Century?” tag? That’s supposed to organize my 21st-century series posts so that one click brings you to them – while Attack of the Clones may very well belong in that category, it’s not part of the series! Thanks.

P.S.S. Just finished reading the piece. It recaptures some of the magic, frustrated magic but magic nonetheless, I experienced watching the movie in the theater. As I recall, I liked it better that Phantom Menace even as it didn’t seem to add up to much, punting and thus placing the burden of the prequels on Episode III. It felt more like “Star Wars” than Episode I. It had a bit of the mystery, the darkness, the expansiveness, though perhaps not enough. Still, a little bit of a good thing, tantalizing, frustrating, remains better than nothing. I particularly liked the Sand People thing as I recall.

Now I really do want to see these films again. I think a six-film marathon may be upcoming…

First off, BOB, the first comment I made on this thread was a JOKE. Secondly, while I admire the passion you display in this brilliantly written piece, the facts remain clear: Lucas flubbed the ball too much to makea successfully effective film. ATTACK OF THE CLONES is a BLOATED foray into the film-makers own self induced “importance” and is far too fat in visual fire-works than it should be. He wants to tell a deeply affecting tragic story of a supposed great mans decline, but is far too concerned with “entertaining” his audience with more (much more) of what had come before. The excess should have been trimmed, without nostalgiac waxing for the 70’s, and delivered a far better film. As it stands, the emotional center, the doomed romance, becomes secondary to his impulsive pushing of CGI buttons and horrendously long action moments that flounder. Great essay on a far from great (or good) movie (I dare not say “film”).

And, its PRECISELY because his audiences EXPECTED big and colorful that the director should have witheld. Imagine how great this film would have been without the excess? Had more time, better coaching for the principle actors been available and a good script editor been in existence, we might have been fed something truly tragic, grand and operatic than this hodgepodge of cerebral starts with no real endings. Like all of his STAR WARS films after EMPIRE(and I stand firm that NEW HOPE is still the best), Lucas seems far more concerned with pyrotechnic money shots than he is with the dramatic arcs that supposedly make this story special to him. Had he built more on the danger of the lovers consummation and the well of despair and horror it will cause then the overflow of action sequences would not have been necessary or willingly invited. The audience might not have gotten what they were expecting but something better, a truly ORIGINAL drama of operatic human emotions. This film is a beautiful MESS.

A beautiful mess– That’s not a bad description for the film, and amongst some of my favorite movies, it’s a high compliment. What else is “Heaven’s Gate” but a grand, operatic fiasco of pure, unbridled cinematic beauty? Some films need to let themselves go, be absolutely unrestrained, even if it means getting lost along the way. Take a more conservative approach, and you get something more superficial, fenced in by self-conscious allowances to the mainstream.

Still, by and large I like the film’s romance. It’s frankly one of the better versions of antique, courtly love on the screen I’ve seen that doesn’t contend to sketching itself in short, painfully superficial scenes (LOTR’s Aragorn and Arwen appear to go through less of a love story, and more its Cliffs Notes). The dark deeds young Skywalker commits here are ample foreshadowing for the increasingly bad omen his love for Padme portends, and even amidst all the digital fireworks there’s enough focus on the characters to make their dilemmas and inevitable consequences pallatable. Something I’m glad about is that the emotionalism doesn’t strain itself, the way it sometimes does in “Empire”– Lucas saves most of the heartache for those spare, fleeting images of lovers’ shadows, stolen kisses and the holding of a cyborg hand. There’s an economy to the romance there that I like, something that’s echoed in the uneasy notes Portman and Christensen hit in their purposefully awkward scenes together, where they play less as doomed, tragic lovers than as confused, lonely kids. Frankly, I was happy for that, glad to see young love portrayed as something awkward, painful and paranoid. Would that it were not, but that’s pretty much the way of the world.

As for Lucas refrencing Ray/Ford, I buy it. I see where you’re going and I appreciate the coalitions you’re referring to. However, I’m 45 years old with almost as many years of viewing classic films to make these same connections. Where Lucas fails is that his core audience, outside of the fans that saw the originals repeatedly since 1977, were, basically, a newer, younger and more seasoned group far more interested in the emotional aspects of the story than the fireworks that wowed guys like me that didn’t know any better all those decades ago. What dazzled me in 77 has become commonplace in the 2000’s and a more embracive want for grand emotional drama (gulp, like that of TWILIGHT) has taken center stage. TITANIC was huge but not because of the effects sinking the boat. It was huge because of the emotional human aspects. People were moved by the doomed affair that ended in the sea. Here, one can’t feel enough for their connection to feel the tragedy that is looming. Pity, the prospects were great.
prospect

Good post Dennis. I’ve always said Star Wars in the 2000’s should be as visually arresting, modern, and exciting as SPEED RACER. that’s the problem here, he’s all technical bells and whistles (or as you say ‘his impulsive pushing of CGI buttons’) in an era where several filmmakers have passed him in the understanding and use of technology.

I’d say they should also be more adult, but Lucas stopped making films for adults in about 1973.

All due respect to you and Ari, but “Speed Racer” can’t touch “Attack of the Clones” or any other SW film for visual arrest even at its best moments. I’m a fan of what the Wachowskis did in that movie and rate it highly, but not that high. Like Coppola’s “One From the Heart”, it’s a technical marvel of stylized imagery and transitions chiefly, but at the end of the day it doesn’t quite match Lucas’ vision for imaginative and coherent cinematic spectacle. Most of it is simply cartoon-fluff cleverly concieved, and occasionally lacking in an essential dose of clarity to let everything gel together perfectly. Granted, I wouldn’t quite call it a misfire, but at the same time it’s a film that I find it much easier to take at home rather than in the theater.

Oh, and for those who say Hayden Christensen did a poor job as Anakin? Well, at least he didn’t whisper half his lines like Emile Hirsch did as Speed. Again, I liked the movie too, but I’ve got far more issues with it than anything here.

At this point the discussion is pointless, if we were talking sports teams you’d be the walking definition of a ‘blind homer’. I understand you like Lucas, and if trashing the Cameron’s, Wachowski’s, and Jackson’s (all directors I really could care less about anyways) of the world creates a vacuum that Lucas can fill then by all means knock yourself out. This conversation just doesn’t seem worthwhile at a certain point.

Actually, I thought I was pretty fair to the Wachowskis there, far from trashing them. If I’m a little tougher on them here, it’s simply because I find they’re just as open to scrutiny as anyone else. For the record, I hold their cinematic contributions over the past ten years to be far higher than anything Jackson, Cameron or even Nolan have done. They don’t quite reach what Lucas ever accomplished, but for sheer originality they’re more or less unmatched, and I hope they’ve got more in them.

Sure they all have faults, as I even said I don’t really like any of the ones listed that much… but to see all their faults and be blind, or willing to cast aside any fault in Lucas I just don’t see a point in the discussion after a while. I’m not being harsh, I enjoy the conversations here with you. But it’s like talking to a believer, no evidence or point is going to alter your opinion in the slightest, and when the belief is in a film as poor as this one I just have to move on.

Take a look back at my review, Jamie, and I think you’ll find I’m not ignoring or casting aside any of Lucas’ faults here. The awkward romance, the insular serial-narrative, the competitive set-piece envy– these are all flawed aspects which make the film problematic. In my opinion they don’t undermine it, however, and you’re right, my mind isn’t likely to change on that point any time soon. But that’s not really why any of us are here, to recruit anyone to our own points of view. I myself might be here simply to express an opinion, but if I really had any emotional investment in winning converts, I’d have given up the ghost long ago.

right, but as the certain filmmakers I love that are somewhat unique to me (cronenberg, ray, malick, and stuart gordon) I wouldn’t trash another filmmaker to elevate the status of one of these guys. I like them I will say I like them and move on. It’s cool though I enjoy these talks with you, your Lucas fandom is unequal to anyone I know.

I share your fascination with Cronenberg (especially his early stuff– “Stereo” & “Crimes of the Future” might be the best films he ever made, and that’s not intended as a disrespect at his later works). If I’m highly critical of guys like Jackson and Cameron on these comments, it’s partly because I find that they’re guilty of the same directorial weaknesses and filmmaking flaws that Lucas is, but by and large, they’re given more free passes by critics (especially here).

I will admit that I enjoy most of Cameron’s movies after all’s said and done, but not nearly as much as other filmmakers. Jackson, however, I’m almost completely done with, personally. I can admire “Heavenly Creatures” and some of LOTR from afar, but mostly I can’t stand his work anymore for any number of reasons, and if I’m vocal about it here, it’s partly to act as an alternative voice.

I agree with most of what you say here (except the Cronenberg, but that’s just because I’m not sure I could pick a favorite era of his).

The comment on the comparisons of Cameron, Jackson, and Lucas is correct as well. Of these three I’m not sure who I like the best. When I think of the film I like the best from each (‘THX-1138’ from Lucas, ‘Terminator 1 or 2’ from Cameron, and ‘Dead Alive or Heavenly Creatures’ from Jackson) I think I’d want to watch the Lucas one first, and think it’s the best film.

Agreed without reservation on “THX 1138”. Along with “Heaven’s Gate”, it’s easily my all-time favorite stand-alone film. Each “Star Wars” episode is real quality in my opinion, but I hold it highest as a series.

When it comes to Cronenberg, I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy his most recent films much at all. With the exception of “Spider”, his output this decade has been too mainstream for my tastes, and even that lone outsider film of his hasn’t gotten under my skin enough for me to watch it a second time. I don’t quite have a favorite period of his, per se, though I still love his first two feature/shorts best. “Stereo” & “Crimes of the Future” are a great double-feature, and some of the best avant-garde science fiction out there (they’re both very easily in my personal top-ten). They’d make a great companion-piece with “THX 1138”. But besides those, I dig pretty much all his work up to and including “eXistenZ” pretty equally.

Regarding Cameron– I probably respect “The Abyss” most of all as a really interesting piece of hardened sci-fi. At the same time, though, I’ve come to appreciate the character-driven charms of “Aliens” more and more. A while ago I saw that in a theater along with Scott’s original, and it was a real eye-opener to see how an audience responded to his rogue’s gallery of Space Marines. I missed that visceral, sometimes off-putting, but mostly goofy and endearing element of humanity in “Avatar”, where all the jarheads became cannon-fodder for blue-skinned basketball players to hunt down.

Re: Jackson– “Heavenly Creatures” is the only film of his I really admire anymore, though even that I haven’t seen in a very, very long time. “Fellowship of the Ring” was the only LOTR movie I could sit through without getting bored. Everything he’s done since then, obviously, I’m not a fan of.

This is probably another heresy of Prequel-loving proportions, but my own personal favorite of that series is “Alien 3”. Fincher did something pretty tremendous there with his first film, even despite studio interference, and delivered a climax to the franchise that’s beautifully bleak, powerfully tragic and mightily triumphant. I only wish 20th Century Fox had the good sense to leave well enough alone and not turn the trilogy into (I shudder and choke to even type this) a quadrilogy.

I think the third one is ok, (and I say this as a serious lover of women with shaved heads) to me the best one after the original is the 4th one. I always thought that was VERY unjustly panned. Not a masterpiece, but rather enjoyable.

BTW I’ve never seen those two early Cronenberg’s are they released commercially? if not I’m to the torrents…..

Jamie, you’ll have to excuse me while I call 911 and head to the emergency room, as I believe my eyes have just popped out of their sockets after reading someone praise “Alien Resurrection”. I can excuse Jeunet of that film’s weakness, and even admire some of his visual work. Whedon’s script, however, pretty much the worst type of studio hack-job there is. Or at least that’s what it is to my eyes (now dangling from their optic nerves, swaying like pendulums as I type blindly, staring down at the floor).

If you have a Blu Ray player, I’d suggest picking up last year’s release of “Fast Company”, as it has both of the shorts as supplementals. In fact, I bought that disc expressly for “Stereo” & “Crimes of the Future”, and haven’t even bothered to watch the actual feature yet.

By the way, Jamie, as a lover of women with shaved heads, what are your thoughts on “THX 1138”? I’d have mentioned it before, but the line on “Alien 3” just caught my eye here. I can understand the appeal (Sinead always looked cute) though I can’t say it’s a big plus for me.

Oh it’s certainly in the pantheon of sub-sub-sub genre I’ve created ‘Women with Shaved Head Films’. I once argued with a friend (then contemplated writing an essay on it) that THX-1138 presented a terrible dystopia that I’d gladly live in since it was populated with women with nothing but shaved heads. It’s strange, but it is a scientifically recognized trait (acomophilia is the proper term), it’s not THAT odd.

Demi Moore in GI JANE was fantastic, as was Natalie Portman in V FOR VENDETTA. Then there is the ALIENS 3 we mention, ANNA AND THE KING, DUNE, Robin Tunney in EMPIRE RECORDS (a really good one), THE GLASS SHIELD, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ ARC, MINORITY REPORT, MATRIX REVOLUTIONS and if I’m in a good mood I’ll consider a chelsea girl cut like in THIS IS ENGLAND as a proper head shave (when it really isn’t). There are a few other pretty obscure foreign ones too (like Ingrid Rubio in the Argentine TAXI), and a few with fake head caps are worn. These don’t count.

It’s strange that this look is never used normally. It’s always for a women to be shown as a subversive rebel OR if the film is set in a strange fascist future. Oh well, it’s a great look for females to sport.

But as you note Sinead O’Connor is still (and probably to me always will be) the high water mark. Though much of that has to do that she was/is an amazing artist, that I admire a great deal.

That’s an interesting rationale to live in the world of THX. There is a problem, however– yes, you’re surrounded by beautiful bald women, but get caught having sex with one of them (supposing they’ve gone off their meds enough for their urges not to be supressed) and it’s an automatic ticket to the freaky minimalist prison-without-walls. Granted, you could always enjoy the dancing bald-lady holograms and the comforts of the ceiling milking-machine, but it’s just not the same thing.

And I have to say, that’s quite the compendium of close-cropped women you’ve got there. It’s too bad Lucas ditched Sith Witch idea for AOTC, or else then you could enjoy watching Yoda lock sabers with a hot bald chick instead of Christopher Lee. It’s nice that the design concept was reused for Asajj Ventress in “The Clone Wars” cartoons, but I’ll admit it would’ve been mighty cool (perhaps not as cool as Dracula, but still). And hey, there is a lady with a classic sci-fi close-cropped hair-cut in AOTC when Obi-Wan hits the bar, so you’ve got that going for you. It’s more Annie Lennox than Sinead, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Also, one sci-fi bald chick you left off: Persis Khambatta as Ilia, in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”. Personally, I’m more partial to hair that’s merely short, instead of entirely buzzed off– Angelina Jolie in “Hackers” is a good example– but hey, I don’t see any hull-ruptures in this particular boat.

That’s exactly what my friend said when we had the discussion on the world of THX-1138, and my response then was the same now as it was then: celibacy would be no problem if aided by pharmaceuticals–sex would just be off the table. It would be a desire that I never had, and I would probably believe that it was a desire that mankind had never had. Our arguments for it are based on a world be know, and choices we’ve already known/had. The thing I said I’d miss the most with all these bald Aphrodites walking around wasn’t sex but things like poetry and music. What’s the point to being near a Sinead if I can’t recite Rainer Maria Rilke’s prose in her ear (himself a poet of asexual urges more often then not!). This idea is more or less expressed in Godard’s ALPHAVILLE.

I hadn’t know the connection to STAR TREK and will seek it out, I’ve only seen one of those films and I was about 12 at the time. It would have been way over my (fully haired) head.

I share your appreciation to a little pixie cut too, ala Jean Seberg in A BOUT DE SOUFFLE and Winona Ryder in ALIENS 4 (among other films). I’m actually preparing a script for a crime film where the leading lady is described as sporting ‘a haircut like Robert Redford’s in BAREFOOT IN THE PARK or when more perfectly coiffed, THE GREAT GATSBY’. But then again I think every aesthetic minded male likes the pixie cut. The shaved head is the next logic step in our sexual evolution, even if most haven’t realized it yet.

One of the reasons I think that “bald-chic” hasn’t really caught on is the all the connotations the look has with prisoners. In nearly all the sci-fi examples noted– especially “THX 1138”, “Alien 3” and “V For Vendetta”– the women’s heads are shaved because they are literally imprisoned in some form or another. Shaven heads have also been used throughout history as symbols of political vengeance and subjugation– Dreyer’s “Passion” is an easy example of that, but I also think of French women in WWII who were caught sleeping with German soldiers and paraded bald by the Resistance as collaborators (remind me: is this shown explicitly in “Hiroshima Mon Amour”, or only implied?).

Therefore, there’s a pretty strong line of victimology that makes baldness unnatractive to a lot of men, not to mention women themselves. Nowadays it’s also compounded by our modern associations of baldness with cancer. So by and large, it’s a pretty tricky ideal, but again, one that I see the attraction of.

Another cool sci-fi bald chick, though I don’t know if this applies so well in the film version– Tank Girl. And if I do have a current favorite example of the Pixie cut, it would probably be Natalie Portman in “Hotel Chevalier”. And hey, we’ve got her bald-turn in “V For Vendetta” to thank for that, so way to go.

By the way, did you ever watch “Stereo” & “Crimes of the Future”? Been wondering a while what another Cronenberg fan would make of them, especially one who’s more partial to his recent work. I’ve been revisiting his earlier stuff lately, stuff like “Rabid” (great Romero-esque zombie flick), “The Brood” (most disturbing sci-fi/horror movie about parenthood since “Eraserhead”) and “Scanners” (just plain bugnuts crazy, and to a certain extend a perverse recreation of the “Star Wars” mythos with more boddy-horror and corporate paranoia). There’s also a very cool 80’s documentary on Cronenberg I found on YouTube that you might want to check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2wk8ZI_8Co

No I haven’t, but I plan too in the next day or two. I know I said that before but after I became aware that I could watch them on dvd I put it aside, then the FAST COMPANY dvd arrived from netflix and it’s only disc 1, not disc 2 which is the one I need (sadly disc 2 isn’t available right now to rent), so I’ll have to watch them online–which is ok, I’ll just have to do it now. BTW, I actually watched FAST COMPANY yesterday–urgh, what a lame movie, I assume Cronenberg just wanted to work a little bit but it’s pretty bad. Like Cameron doing PIRANHA 2 bad.

– – – – –

As for your comments on baldness (it being a seen as a negative, or a victim trait, etc), I would agree with you– it’s also why I feel that people need to wear it, to ‘own’ the negative aspect. It’s just a hairstyle after all, one that’s quite chic at that. Turn the negative into a positive.

– – – – –

HOTEL CHAVALIER (sp?) is a great example of what we speak of, as is this new show on ‘V’… I haven’t watched it, but the main woman (the alien representative I think based on the ads I’ve seen) sports it rather well too.

Re: Fast Company– Oh, that bites. I’m not surprised about the movie itself, but again, I didn’t really care about it when I made that purchase. I hope I’m not building up unfair expectations, but I was curious about these shorts for a long time, and in my opinion the (pricier than DVD) blu-ray purchase was absolutely worth every penny just to have those two. “Stereo” and “Crimes of the Future” really are that good, in my opinion.

Cronenberg’s early days are something of an acquired taste, I think, even if you’re a fan of the majority of his work. “Shivers” and “Rabid” are both really interesting and fun, but aside from little tastes of the man’s trademark “body horror”, they feel very close to rip-offs of Romero’s “Dead” movies– albeit very, very clever rip-offs, possibly even exceeding the quality of the originals at times. “The Brood” is an interesting movie, and a good look at Cronenberg’s maturing narrative talent, but at times the domestic family drama gets in the way of the more interesting sci-fi blending of psychotherapy and physical ailments– the telltale “Shape of Rage”. “Scanners” is just plain classic, though, and pinpoints the moment where Cronenberg began matching his abstract intellectual sensibilities much more successfully within mainstream, marketable filmmaking.

Re: Bald women– After watching ROTS again this weekend, I realized there’s yet another bald woman there, in the person of Palpatine’s creepy, pale Senate aid. In that extent, I suppose there’s more than just rebels & victims who sport the cut– there’s also witchy looking villainesses. Every now and then there’s also the woman whose baldness is a sign of beauty and some kind of maternal etherialness, like that blue alien chick from “Farscape” (Ilia from “Star Trek TMP” is also a good example of this, but with more sensuality).

Re: Pixie– I’ve only just now realized how apt Julia Roberts’ hair-cut as Tinkerbell in “Hook” was. I’ve been watching “V” on and off at times– it’s good, and the production design is beautiful, but it’s got nothing on Kenneth Johnson’s original, which was brilliant as a kind of “It Happened Here” plus UFO’s.

“Titanic” was a hit because a huge swath of the female population hit puberty just in time to fall in love with Leonardo DiCaprio. He could’ve been paired with a soggy mop for a love-interest and the film would’ve broken box-office records.

An odd thing about what you’re saying– the newer “Star Wars” films have actually been pretty successful with the newer generation of younger audiences, kids too young to have grown up with the originals in theaters or on VHS. The main difference isn’t some yearning hunger for some greater emotionalism that the films don’t deliver on (they do, without going over the edge), but instead that there’s been far more competition for audience attention in the past decade with all sorts of competing sci-fi/fantasy epics, many all comprised of variations on all the same cliches.

FINALLY-I never understood the need to make these three films in the first place. The conclusion is already given. We know the outcome of Anakins fate. Lucas started the ball rolling with episodes 4,5 and 6 because he knew full well that had he started with 1 he would have bored audiences to tears. Now, he presents his PREQUELS and finds himself captured in a paper bag he can’t punch his way out of. Part of the fun of the first three films were the surprising and dramatic reveals that jump out at you (“No, Luke, I AM YOUR FATHER”). The films starting with PHANTOM you have a fair-to-decent director scrambling to make interesting something that was best left to our imaginations. What we get is a three film cycle desperately pulling at straws hoping to wow us enough to not notice that what’s on display is just a dress rehearsal to a bigger show that was already, successfully, performed. He knew the first three were so good he did them first. To me, the prequels were Lucas looking to cash in on past success.

Again, I love all the emphasis on political conspiracy, religious dogma and courly manners that drives much of the plot in the Prequels, and I find the visual filmmaking and action set-pieces he configured here to be some of the most impressive of the last decade. So really, even if the PT wasn’t entirely necessary, it’s certainly a welcome addition. There’s simply too much being expressed in the Prequels (if awkwardly) to dismiss them as a purely commercial enterprise outright.

Anywa, if we’re going to wonder about how necessary some movies were, I might wonder if all three of the LOTR movies really needed to be 3 hours long, if some of those goddamn “Harry Potter” books couldn’t have been compressed (rather than being drawn out into multi-part affairs, as the last one looks to be), or if James Cameron really cares as much about digital 3D or the extra expense it adds to the ticket purchase.

I need to clarify here. What I was referring to with TITANIC is that most of todays filmgoers are kids who find CGI landscapes, action-sequences and effects as something that has been the norm since their birth. Often, and because of this familiarity, they trnd to find interesting the things my generation found common-place, namely emotion. Its an ironic reverse, I know, but one that is true. I recently watched TWILIGHT for the first time. Regardless to what I thought of the film, ultimately, I found myself intriqued by the special effects and the Vampire culture. In attendance that night was Sam’s oldest, Melanie (14) who dodnt notice any of the things I just listed. She was totally hooked on the emotions. I feel the same is true with TITANIC and CLONES. Different interests from different generations.

There’s an element of truth there, Dennis. Modern, younger audiences take so much in the way of special-effects for granted, nowadays, such to the point that movies composed of nothing but FX can very easily become boring to them (I now realize this might be why that little girl who sat behind me at “King Kong” was so unmoved– even if she’d never seen the original film in her life, there was literally nothing on that screen she hadn’t seen before). I will say that with prequels, specifically, my sister and her friends (now seniors in college) were all pretty much moved by the forbidden romance, especially with the caveat of Jedi celibacy and Anakin’s eventual murder of women, children and his own love. This is in stark contrast to the last LOTR film, which I saw with them in the theater, to which they kept making gay jokes about Frodo and Sam the whole time.

And to be honest, even with acknowledgement of Bob Clark’s exceptional writing abilities, and favoring of thesis-length treatments, (the site has TWO Clarks who never leave any stones unturned), this reaction was completely unexpected. There is truthfully nothing I can really add here, as it would pale next to the all-encompassing analysis on this thread from the relentless Movie Man, Jamie Uhrer, Stephen, Dennis, Hokahey, Frank Gallo, Allan and Mr. Clark himself. I was never a fan of this film (I liked SITH well enough though) but I am amazed at the kind of scholarly analytical discourse that has emanated from this Mother of reviews.

Wrong, Sam, it’s a very fine piece, but Heaven’s Gate was his best moment (on this site, there may have even been better on Clark’s own site). Put Captain Sycophant back in the jar, old boy. We know you’re the Sultan of Sycophancy, you have no challengers and never will.

Again, it’s Ari’s site, for what it’s worth. And while I’d like to think the quality of either essay is pretty much equal, I do think that “Heaven’s Gate” is more deserving of a second-wind than almost anything out there. “Star Wars” and the Prequels will have their day with critics eventually, but Cimino’s near-forgotten masterpiece is in much more dire need of popular rediscovery. It doesn’t have legions of old fans keeping its spirit alive, even in dissent, or new generational audiences raised to see it with new eyes and clean expectations. It barely has any imprint upon cinematic memory beyond its infamy as a studio-killing, era-ending bomb, mentioned only in the same sentences as “Ishtar” or “Waterworld”.

In short, both the Prequels and “Heaven’s Gate” deserve a renaissance, but “Heaven’s Gate” needs it, needs it badly, and the sooner the better.

Actually I thought BOB’s piece on HEAVEN’S GATE was BOB’s defining moment (even garnering a response of praise from the often silent ALLAN FISH). I too am no fan of these films, the entertain me once and then I’m shot, but I can fully appreciate the labor, love and detailed analysis that BOB puts on display here and in all of his essays. The question is: does a film like this truly warrant such an analysis? Is it really that deep? Metaphorical? Refrencing? Probably not. But, that there ARE individuals like BOB out there that have taken it upon themselves to read into what few do is, in honesty, truly inspiring. I enjoyed his essay, this discussion thread and am almost (stress ALMOST) willing to give this trilogy another look (I still shutter at the prospects of PHANTOM MENACE, though). I think a BRAVO is due my late-nite nemesis for this truly awe-inducing piece.

Relative depth is more or less irrelevant to whether or not a film uses metaphor or references to put its point across. I can understand if you feel AOTC and “Star Wars” in general lacks that kind of depth (as I myself can and have said the same of other, more celebrated daydream-believers), but if nothing else, I’d like to think that I’ve demonstrated how Lucas uses his litany of cinematic, mythological and dramatic reservoirs to create an experience that relies heavily upon the metaphorical and referential, shallow or not.

As for whether or not a film, or any work, is worth analysis– that’s solely up to the writer in question to decide. One man’s trash is another man’s trash cinema.

Also, I do wish that my “Heaven’s Gate” piece had recieved the rather surprisingly heavy traffic that this piece has earned. If nothing else, perhaps it proves that Lucas is an easier sell to filmgoers than Cimino, at least in the case of that magnum opus– the fact that you’re willing to entertain the thought of revisiting the Prequels (however briefly) is proof enough of that. I will say, however, that if any movie ever deserved a second chance, it’s “Heaven’s Gate”.

I know this is gonna sound CRAZY…. However, reading through comments between JAMIE and BOB, I have to admit my admiration for Fincher’s ALIEN 3. From a visual stance, the film is the BEST of the sequels and the feeling of impending dread is far more pronounced within the narrative and visual structure of the film. Fincher is a far more creative and skilled director of this kind of work than any of the others that saw to helm a chapter in this Sci-Fi series. Some might call my praise for the film and its director over-the-top. But, considering Finchers out-pour of soon-to-be classics (SE7EN, THE GAME, FIGHT CLUB, PANIC ROOM), I think the praise I share with Bob is totally justified. IMO.

No doubt, what Fincher did with “Alien 3” is really special and under-recognized. He brings that bleak, dystopian dread and despair that was lurking about in the background of the first two films and brings it directly into the forefront. That lice-ridden prison planet with its shaven-head, bar-code tattooed inmates is a surely evocative setting. Ripley’s sacrifice, with the budding Queen growing inside her, makes what should’ve been the final installment of the series a wholly tragic, yet life-affirming spectacle. Throwing herself into the lava-pit as the newborn Queen bursts out her chest, she’s a strange combination of Joan of Arc and Captain Ahab, forever persecuted both by corporate hounds and her very own alien white whale, with whom she grapples to the last. I also love the assorted collection of British actors and Charles S. Dutton as the Double Y chromosome inmates. If nothing else, it’s an auspiscious debut for a genuine talent, and a premiere example of the old-school auteur theory at work in the studio system.

Worth pointing out– Fincher got his start in the business under Lucas’ wing as an artist at Industrial Light & Magic, and as such you can see how he learned how to apply special-effects with a far greater creative knack than any of his contemporaries, arguably. That ending in which the hero is immolated in a lake of fire not only recalls Dreyer’s saintly heroine burnt at the stake, but also recalls the T-800’s sacrifice at the end of “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”. It’s also interesting to see how all these heroic smeltings seem to look forward to the fabled volcano duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and I can’t help but wonder if Cameron & Fincher’s films might not have ended a little differently had Lucas not told his tale before he lensed it. Then again, he’d already betrayed a fascination with volcanic as far back as “Temple of Doom” (which Fincher himself worked on), and he himself drew somewhat from Tolkien’s Mount Doom (in book, however, rather than film, where Gollum & the Ring both sink into the lava rather anticlimactically), so who knows? At the very least, it’s interesting to look at how a meme like this develops through film after film…

I find this somewhat hard to write but in some ways I can feel some sympathy with Clark here. Yes, 90% of serious critics dismissed AOTC and the prequels – in my opinion quite rightly – but everyone is entitled to their opinion and, if we’re not here to voice contrary opinions, what are we here for, so long as we avoid the extremes of extreme vitriol on one hand and extreme sycophancy on the other. I find AOTC mediocre, a ** movie at best, ditto TPM, with ROTS at probably around ***. I believe any cut of the LOTR films is better than any one of the SW films. Will it have the same impact? No, Star Wars caught a time when people had fallen out of the wonder of film and was a pivotal member of a quintet of films that reinvented cinema thrills in the seventies (see also Jaws, The Exorcist, Alien and Halloween). I don’t believe either of the five is a ***** masterpiece, but they’re milestones, nonetheless. No doubting either that TESB is a slibhtly better film than SW.

The problem LOTR has is that the stories were well known to millions of people anyway, whereas Star Wars was its own mythology in Lucas’ head. OK, it was plagiarised from countless serials, The Hidden Fortress and even bits of Arthurian and Germanic legend, but even so. People were opened up to an entirely new world. LOTR merely depicted a world we had previously known of but only imagined. That it made so many Tolkein fans happy and sent millions more to read the books is something that, though having no bearing on my own individual feelings on the films, cannot be underestimated.

In the end, however, we’re all here to educate in a way. What else was my silent countdown but an education for people who had never heard of dozens of the films included, let alone seen. Same here with my top 100 for the 2000s, there are a fair few films here people may not have seen, especially in the States, but which deserve their place, and some that many critics rate badly but I didn’t, some real left field selections that will have people stuttering the response of David Tennant’s TimeLord to something seemingly incredulous “what…WHAT…WHAT!!”!!”

But I echo Clark’s thoughts on Heaven’s Gate, it would be so much better to get traffic on the ones that deserve the traffic. You just need to see the dozens and dozens of films left alone in my countdowns to see the generally uninformed status of many so-called film buffs, and that needs remedying.

Fish, I wholeheartedly appreciate the kind and respectful thoughts here. As I’ve said so many times before, a certain part of my preference for SW over LOTR is purely a genre one– I love sci-fi, and aside from Lewis and Pullman don’t really have any care for fantasy. Partly it’s also political– Tolkien’s worldview and Jackson’s visualization of it are both exemplary in their own ways, but the world of Middle Earth is one that’s far too puritanical and conservative for me to hold it up as any kind of heroic ideal. It’s filled with so much of the old European Crusader mentality, at times nearly a mythological retelling of “The Song of Roland” with all its monstrous races of the East and war-elephants. Nowadays, it mostly just makes me want to watch Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s “300” instead– at least that film/comic-book understood all the exageration behind all the eastern-invader war stories, all those self-serving frame tales told ’round the campfire blown up into mytho-propaganda.

There’s also an artistic conservatism I find myself somewhat bored by in Jackson’s work– no doubt he’s a far more balanced hand with the diverse talents a director needs to deliver something that’s both powerful drama and cinema, but for the most part I find his visual instincts to be a little too rote, too staid and mainstream to think it terribly exciting. For all his faults (which, like all my favorite directors, are there in spades), I find Lucas has a far more radical eye for motion-pictures, more abstract and poetic about the grand epic scope of old-movie spectacle, smart enough to know when to rely on a classical kind of retro-futuristic symmetry in his compositions but bold enough to cast aside caution and adopt a more agressive and dynamic hand when the action calls for it. Even at his most Hollywood, I can still see an avant-garde streak blazing in Lucas’ work, which frankly I fail to recognize anywhere in Jackson’s filmography, save perhaps for “Heavenly Creatures”.

So in that respect, it’s a matter of aesthetic preference– Jackson is more of a classicist, a traditionalist, while Lucas is more modern, or at his best times even post-modern. This is why I’ll always rate LOTR somewhere behind SW even at its weakest, for the same reason I’d rather go to the Guggenheim or MoMA rather than to the Met or the Cloisters, or that I’d rather listen to Dave Brubeck or George Gershwin than ol’ Wolfgang Amadeus or Ludwig Van.

But yes, we’re all here in our own ways to educate, to show what we feel everyone else might’ve missed due to availability or popular concensus. Frankly, I’m glad that the tone throughout this discussion– on a film which I rate highly, while remaining fully aware of how much of a minority that opinion is– has been so near-uniformally civil and agreeable for so long. I’m even happy to see guys like Joel, Jamie and Dennis each, with varying levels of seriousness, considering to give the films a second chance. Granted, I’d expect anyone’s opinions to change as much here as they would regarding “Heaven’s Gate”, but it’s the dialogue itself that counts the most, the effort of minds met halfway in the midst of give-and-take. Without that vital spirit of debate, a colloquy like ours might as well go to the dogs.

Bob, in terms of LOVING Tolkein’s world, I don’t, though I love the movies as technical accomplishments and as pieces of epic storytelling. In the end, however, they just make me wish Jackson had spent the time and money doing a trilogy of Arthurian films instead (Part One detailing the story of Uther Pendragon and through to the pulling of the sword from the stone, Part Two detailing the rise of Camelot and the round table and finishing with the destructive first affairs of Lancelot and Guinevere and a third detailing the Fall of Camelot, the death of Merlin, Arthur, Mordred et al). Sadly, in this economic climate, it isn’t possible. Excalibur is excellent, and owes much to Lucas, but it’s like a cliff’s notes version, as butchered from the original story as Von Stroheim’s surviviong Greed from his original.

On this point, I know exactly what you’re talking about, Fish. Frankly, I don’t think there’s any ancient epic that’s ever quite been captured on film in a way it fully deserves. Has there ever been a definitive cinematic version of Homer’s “Iliad” or “Odyssey”? Will we ever see Dante’s truly Divine Comedy brought to the screen anywhere, to say nothing of the work of Virgil? Does even Lang’s thrilling vision of “Die Nibelungen” match the sheer scope of the original Norse myths or Wagner’s Ring Cycle? Hell, I doubt we could even get any two people to agree on what the greatest Biblical epics are. No doubt, Arthurian legend has yet to have been captured on the silver-screen in manner befitting its legacy, but it’s by no mean alone. All we can do is mourn the old stories together, and find what we can (and at times, there is more than enough) in the new myths our cinematic seers weave when the Muse speaks in them.

“I don’t think there’s any ancient epic that’s ever quite been captured on film in a way it fully deserves. Has there ever been a definitive cinematic version of Homer’s “Iliad” or “Odyssey”? Will we ever see Dante’s truly Divine Comedy brought to the screen anywhere”

I absolutely agree. Of course, the magic of Shakespeare is in the SPOKEN language. The magic of the Iliad or the Odyssey or Dante’s trilogy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) lies in the plot, yes, but mostly in the use of language not spoken by characters. How can one translate this to the screen? All you get left with is heroes and villains and the merits / demerits of the narrative line. But the language…
we watch that brilliant language (especially in the original Latin or Italian) drift off like Dido watching Aeneas.

I remember in HISTOIRES DU CINEMA Godard ruminating on why what he called the great Italian neo-realist cinema never recorded sound with the image. He concluded that the language of Dante had ‘passed into’ the image. A fabulous poetic thought but, frankly, not the case.

Gustave Dore’s engravings show that Dante’s work, at the very least, has the potential to succeed as a visual tone poem on the screen. It also makes me remain hopeful for Homer, Virgil and all the rest.

Allan, to be fair, discussion arises from – among other things – contension and controversy, not just popularity. The reason many films in your countdown went undiscussed was not just because people hadn’t seen them – it was because there wasn’t necessarily much TO discuss (at least in a forum like Wonders in the Dark, which is not very formalist and hence discusses the technical or specific aesthetic aspects of work less than thematic issues or a more general impression of aesthetics). Certainly I don’t usually comment on every single film I’ve seen, only the ones I feel I have something to say about. It’s also a taste thing – I did catch up with many of your silent picks after the fact, but my interest in silents runs more towards the abrasive avant-garde than the immersive melodrama. I still appreciated what you had to offer, just didn’t have much to bring to the table.

As for Heaven’s Gate, controversial as that film is its reputation is generally less divided (not a good thing for it, unfortunately) than the prequels – which, however much they were criticized, were also big hits. And there’s more a point of comparison, because one can discuss Attack of the Clones as compared to other films in the sage whereas there are no connections between Heaven’s Gate and other films nearly so direct. That’s also going to have an impact on discussion.

I’m not saying “uninformed” readers don’t play a part in the lack of conversation – but it’s only a part, not the whole picture.

As I’ve said a few times in this thread, often I think that contention and controversy are actually much more helpful for a film’s (or any work’s) longterm longevity than is any immediate kind of popularity. The quicker everyone agrees upon a film, the sooner the conversation about it ends, and the quicker everyone starts taking it for granted. Debate is probably the healthiest thing for any art-work, keeping it alive in people’s memory enough to provoke and stimulate, keeping audiences curious enough about it to give a damn one way or the other. It’s one of the reasons the PT is still in a better position than LOTR as far as its longterm reputation goes– for good or ill, people are still talking about one, but not the other.

A bigger question is how this relates to works that initially suffer only failure, instead of split votes. “Heaven’s Gate” has nowhere to go but up in popular and critical opinion, but without that initial upswing of dedicated followers, it’s never quite gained a significant critical traction outside of those who subscribed to Z Channel or watched the documentary on it. Debate could rescue a movie like this, but so far the conversation’s pretty one sided. You need people who can care about the film without necessarily liking it to get a real dialogue going.

I’ve beeb reading along with you guys for a while now. Nice to see you two getting along. For me, the problem in the STAR WARS films is that I feel let down. The old style swash-buckling that was evident in NEW HOPE in 77 (a throw-back to the serials of the 20-30 and 40’s) never really resurfaced again in any of the sequels. My problem with the films after NH was that Lucvas tied everything down in this drawn out political epic. I wanted more adventure, more escapism. The second trilogy, heavy in its own importance, threw in moments of rousing adventure that, looking tired, failed to boost three movies that, to me, were nothing more than a lot of talking heads. RINGS, on the other hand, I think, is a totally different animal. I think Jackson, for the most part, faithfully adapted the books he loved and I feel that love shines through. SW seems forced (pardon the pun) to me, whereas RINGS does not. I find a lot of emotion in RINGS whereas I only see true emotion in NH. That’s just my opinion.

I dunno, I’d say more than a few buckles were swashed in ESB with Han’s tricks evading the Imperial foxhunt and ROTJ especially with the whole first act with Jabba the Hutt. I think where the PT lacks that old feeling is that it’s composed of heroes who are all seasoned professionals at what they do, rather than scrappy amateurs who practically have to use scotch-tape to keep everything from falling apart. The Originals’ Rebels are to the Prequels’ Jedi as swashbuckling pirates and musketeers are to the veteran detectives on “Law & Order” or “Dragnet”, and they give their films a far more procedural feel to them. Which I dig, personall, but it’s useful to identify the different flavors if only to better draw the line on taste. The more political each successive film got, it only ever got more interesting to me.

Frankly, LOTR has the same problems with strained emotionalism that ESB has, only far, far worse (I enjoy that film primarily thanks to the strength of Luke’s story and Suschitzky’s cinematography– I’ve never been in the cult of Han Solo). The performances are too polished, too expert, too rehearsed for me to really buy into it. The actors mostly coast on the laurels of British accents both authentic and mimicked, like an unconfident production of Shakespeare whose castmembers worry more about pronouncing their words correctly than putting genuine feeling behind them. It’s all too theatrical for my tastes, and Jackson’s less than subtle mis-en-scene doesn’t help matters either, telegraphing a lot of false urgency and pyrotechnic drama with its cockeyed angles, frequent slow-mo and other kinds of in-camera gimmickry.

I could keep going, but it’s probably best to save some steam for when Fish starts posting the films in his countdown. Suffice to say, I find more “true emotion” in the PT, however restrained and blunted, and only a whole lot of showboating in LOTR.

WOW! 122 comments and counting! Schmulee’s probably sitting at his desk sweating that this tgread is getting dangerously close to the numbers he achieved with his RETURN OF THE KING post several months back. I can feel the heat of jealusy eminating from Fairview, NJ. “SHIT, SHIT! This Goddamned STAR WARS review is blowing up. LUCILLE! What are we gonna do?!” Lucille’s probably nodding off on the couch to AMERICAN IDOL without a care in the world. LOL!!!!!!! Sam’s never getting to sleep tonite!

You fool. I’m absolutely thrilled at the staggering comment total here, and hope it keeps going up! The quality of the comments are remarkable. My RETURN OF THE KING thread will easily be overtaken as it was as I recall only a few more than where we are now. But at least three other threads toppled hat one, including the site all-time record, 353 comments for Allan Fish’s AKIRA countdown review. But Bob’s thread here is really something and he deserves all the praise that is being bestowed on him.

Didn’t you say at one point you were cooking up another one of your “marathon comments”? Granted, the discussion has picked up steam already, but another contribution couldn’t hurt, even if so much has already been said. If nothing else, it’d be refreshing to hear your thoughts on a film that you don’t consider a “staggering masterpiece”.

Let’s not go counting any unhatched chickens, just yet. Sam’s ROTK piece leveled out at 214 comments, so there’s a little while to go before that statistic is reached. I’ll be happy to keep the conversation going as long as people keep coming back, and that’s really all that one can hope for, for a genuine dialogue to keep things afloat.

Tempers flew higher and higher on the “Akira” thread, and finally got the better of us all in the end. Cooler heads have prevailed here, and to me that’s more important than any broken record. Not that I wouldn’t mind seeing this thread climb to the top– I just don’t want to see us give in to the dark side in order to get there.

Well Bob, I’d have to say that you are the Richard Wagner of the blogosphere. You write the longest reviews of any blogger I’ve ever come across (even Alexander Coleman, who wrote VERY long pieces is nowhere in your sphere remotely) and on top of that you divide your reviews into chapters. Wagner dared his listeners to endure six-hour operas, and you dare WitD readers to stay the course for what is surely a Guiness World Book of Records essay. Well, I finished reading this review earlier tonight, but had to leave the PC to entertain my Tuesday pasta night guests, but I’ll admit you are much fairer in your appraisal than I might have predicted. I guess all things considered, your most damning criticism is that Lucas runs ragged through the narrative to the point where viewers are completely lost in time sequence, and in what begins and what ends at what point. I found this particularly distracting, and was never really able at any point to become immerced in what was largely a convoluted affair, regardless of the sometimes arresting visuals. But you subsequently rally behind Lucas here in those paragraphs, citing his most dependable filmmaking gifts, and I can’t say the film wasn’t often enthralling in that sense.
Unlike the recent STAR TREK film, I was never able to connect emotionally with any of the characters in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, hence teh drama had little weight or resonance, even if individual sci-fi tapestries were commanding.
The greatest accomplishment of this true marathon of film criticism (and again I say that only in the best sense) is your amazing film reference points, bringing in Nicholas Ray, John Ford and THE SEARCHERS and the visual set design influence of METROPOLIS and THX1138, among endless other astute proposals. It’s rather an all-encompassing look at all of cinema, and how through some common ground ATTACK OF THE CLONES is either influenced or influential.

Sam, I appreciate how, like Virgil, you “compare small things to great” in your hyperbole on my essayistic tendencies. Perhaps there’s a differing quality to the way we talk about “emotionally connecting” with characters. Take the recent “Star Trek” for example– the characters I most easily sympathized with were Quinto’s Spock and Saldana’s Uhurua, primarily thanks to some of the unexpected turns the story took them into (Vulcan’s destruction, their relationship). It was interesting, and at times close to moving– I was kept from feeling too much, primarily, thanks to the second-hand nature of Quinto’s performance, so nakedly imitated after Leonard Nimoy, and the impersonation act is impossible to ignore when the real McCoy (no relation to Bones) is there in the flesh. It reminded me somewhat of how Ewan McGregor patterns himself after Alec Guiness for his role as Obi-Wan, but I found far less of a copy-and-paste mentality in the way he studied the old master. There’s an extra dimension of youthful vibrance in the younger Kenobi that earns the hand-me-down mannerisms which helps the audience recognize the character without jamming it down our throats.

What really kept me out of the loop, emotionally, was Chris Pine’s Kirk. I really couldn’t stand the little bastard. What others saw him as an endearingly cocky and dashing rogue, I saw him as a leering, arrogant creep who at times comes dangerously close to sexual harassment. There was none of that suave professional sheen that Shatner coaxed out of the role, and without that occasional spirit of genuinely militant detachment, I was never able to buy the character as anything other than an egocentric prick more interesting in conning his way into the Captain’s chair as selfish birthright, rather than something earned. After a while, I’ll admit, the shared James Dean mannerisms helped me remember a lot of the less admirable qualities that Hayden Christensen exhibited in his performance as Anakin, especially in AOTC. The key difference is that he was playing a future villain– it’s okay for him to come off as creepy, condescending and obsessively rude, because that’s what going to the Dark Side is all about. Anakin Skywalker can get away with being an anti-hero; James T. Kirk can’t.

At any rate, there was little for me to enjoy in that new movie, anyway. Abram’s choice of action was often disappointingly bland (“Fire everything!”) and his coverage of said action was usually too choppy and shaky to have any real sort of coherence. I have to say the same of the story, as well, which was full with a whole lot of dramatic and narrative twists and pyrotechnics, but short on any demonstratable clarity– fans and critics may praise thick in-medeas-res presentations like those throughout the movie, but at the pace by which Abrams and the film’s screenwriters moved things it’s damn near impossible to make sense of anything at all. I vastly prefer the more expositional, more formal style that Lucas used throughout the PT, framing his shots and cutting between them just conservatively to maintain a sense of focus, but dynamically enough to keep things interesting.

If I harp on Abram’s film here, it’s because I was genuinely disappointed by the results he delivered in that film, being quite a fan of much of his television work. His direction throughout the pilot episode for “Lost” is almost one-hundred percent contrary to every criticism I’ve made here– in those 90 minutes, he demonstrated such a clear, level-headed drive of old-school, yet modern filmmaking that it’s near impossible for me to fully believe the same man could be responsible for the visual mess of “Star Trek”. Perhaps he just knows what he’s doing more with 1.78 than 2.35 (I found a lot of “Mission Impossible 3” hard to follow, as well).

At any rate, popular though it was, I found the new “Trek” to be emblematic of everything that’s wrong nowadays with sci-fi (too much empty visual bang, hollow heightened emotions and bland science), and AOTC to represent much of what’s possible with the genre when things are done right (its visual scope and spectacle are both impressive and meaningful; its emotional range, while restrained, is mannered and moving; its scientific curiosity, through the theme of cloning, is clever enough). Granted, it’s mostly down to different tastes (Trekkies gravitate to “Trek”, but not necessarily “Star Wars” fans), but there have been times when I found that the “Trek” films actually did a great job of bridging the gap between hard sci-fi and softer space opera.

Fans usually cite “The Wrath of Khan” as a favorite for its highly personal drama and adventure, and while it isn’t my favorite (for all its ponderous pace, I still prefer “The Motionless Picture” myself), I like to hold up that film as a prime example of “Trek” firing best on all cylinders. What’s most important, however, is that it doesn’t forget the science part of “science fiction”, thanks to the “Genesis Device”, which might be one of the best movie MacGuffins ever devised. What’s great is how much of a multipurpose symbol it is– as a device that creates vibrant vegetation out of nothingness, it’s a symbol for life; as a device that would destroy all living things in its path in favor of its new creation, it’s a symbol for death; and finally as a literal “device” itself, a piece of bio-molecular engineering in the service of a seemingly benign military-industrial complex, it’s a symbol of the dangerous potential that science has for Oppenheimer-level destructive power. All of the “Trek” films have at least some kind of scientific/philosophical element to them (hell, even “The Final Frontier” had something vaguely interesting in its “quest to meet God” bullshit), but all the 2009 film was some incredibly emptyheaded time-travel, which prove exceptionally sloppy next to entries like “the one with the Borgs” or “the one with the whales”.

Eh. At the end of the day, I admire the “Trek” franchise, but I didn’t enjoy this last movie to care about seeing the next one. And while my love for all things “Star Wars” and just about everything in Lucas’ ouvere is obvious (I make exceptions for “Howard the Duck” and “Radioland Murders”), it has over the years earned something far more important than mere entertainment– it has my respect. Or should it be the other way around?

As I said before, I thought Quinto’s Spock was decent, if nearly as mechanical as an animatronic President at Disneyland. At the very least, I emotionally connected with his character far more than Pine’s petulant Kirk– if they really want to blow everyone’s minds with their timescape altering premise, why not kill Kirk off entirely and let the movies be about Spock? It’s not like they thought twice about killing him off before, and that’s when he was played by William Shatner. Taking care of this lame 90210-style wannabe should be pretty easy.

At any rate, the movie was incobprehensible garbage to my eyes. Nothing but shaky-cam and lens-flares polluting the frame and making it damn near impossible to follow any of the action onscreen. Why anyone would find this sort of hard-to-follow direction satisfying on any level is beyond me.

Hey Bob,
I found the link to this article on TF.N, and what a great read it is! Especially on the most underappreciated entry in the greatest original movie saga of all time. Ultimately, I think, AOTC failure for many viewers is primarily due to the technical reasons. Which is really strange: we’re used to wooden dialogue and stiff acting, but the editing and the scoring? These two things is what made the original SW into the phenomenon it became.

Even the romance would work much better with the family scene included. I wish Lucas didn’t let Burtt to come anywhere close to the editing process.

Thanks, Nat. The Burtt-related editing and score technical issues are indeed distracting at times, but I’ve definitely seen worse in bigger and better films (the awkward color timing in Heat, for one). I’d like to think that in the blu-ray/3D rereleases we might see some of those deleted sections reinstated to the films proper, as they do open them up nicely. But especially with AOTC, I think that the tightness sometimes is to its advantage. I’d rather see some more of the anti-corporatist political content put back in, the quality of the Naboo family stuff notwithstanding.

Reblogged this on the Writer's Disease and commented:
Bob Clark’s excellent, albeit lengthy article is best summed up in his final paragraph, “Simply put, after all these years, the conversation surrounding them hasn’t ended, and isn’t likely to cease any time soon, as passionate supporters seek to defend it, even in the face of overwhelming objecting opinions. The fact that so many people are still talking about these films, even to decry their motives and attack their substance, stands as proof positive enough that they succeeded in making a permanent mark with audiences, providing a series of expert escapist adventure every bit as disturbing and thought-provoking as they are entertaining– love it or hate it, the movie remains a frequent talking point, and that makes it a modern classic.” I have made similar arguments in my own reviews. The Star Wars prequels remain true works of art, the proof being the way in which they are continually discussed and debated. Poor films are forgotten. Lucas’ magnum opus has never been, and will likely never be.

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Wonders in the Dark is a blog dedicated to the arts, especially film, theatre and music. An open forum is highly encouraged, as the site proctors are usually ready and able to engage with ongoing conversation.